BETULACE^ 



201 



1. CARPINUS L. Hornbeam. 



Trees, with smooth close bark, hard strong close-grained wood, elongated conic buds 

 covered by numerous imbricated scales, the inner lengthening after the opening of the 

 buds. Leaves open and concave in the bud, ovate, acute, often cordate; stipules strap- 

 shaped to oblong-obovate. Flowers: staminate in aments emerging in very early spring 

 from buds produced the previous season near the ends of short lateral branchlets of the 

 year and inclosed during the winter, composed of 3-20 stamens crowded on a pilose 

 receptacle adnate to the base of a nearly sessile ovate acute coriaceous scale longer than 

 the stamens; filaments short, slender, 2-branched, each branch bearing a 1-celled oblong 

 yellow half-anther hairy at the apex; pistillate in lax semi-erect aments terminal on leafy 

 branches of the year, in pairs at the base of an ovate acute leafy deciduous scale, each 

 flower subtended by a small acute bract with two minute bractlets at its base; calyx adnate 

 to the ovary and dentate on the free narrow border. Nut ovoid, acute, compressed, con- 

 spicuously longitudinally ribbed, bearing at the apex the remnants of the calyx, marked 

 on the broad base by a large pale scar and separating at maturity in the autumn from the 

 leaf-like 3-lobed conspicuously serrate green involucre formed by the enlargement of the 

 bract and bractlets of the flower and inclosing only the base of the nut, fully grown at 

 mid-summer and loosely imbricated into a long-stalked open cluster. (Eucarpinus.) 



Carpinus is confined to the northern hemisphere, and is distributed from the Province 

 of Quebec through the eastern United States to the highlands of Central America in the 

 New World, and from Sweden to southern Europe, Asia Minor, the temperate Himalayas, 

 Korea, southern China, Japan and Formosa in' the Old World. Fifteen or sixteen species 

 are recognized. Of the exotic species, the European and west Asian Carpinus Betulus L. 

 is frequently planted as an ornamental tree in the northeastern United States, where some 

 of the species of eastern Asia promise to become valuable. 



Carpinus is the classical name of the Hornbeam. 



1. Carpinus caroliniana Walt. Hornbeam. Blue Beech. 



Leaves often somewhat falcate, long-pointed, sharply doubly serrate with stout spread- 

 ing glandular teeth, except at the rounded or wedge-shaped often unequal base, pale 



Fig. 191 



bronze-green, and covered with long white hairs when they unfold, at maturity thin and 

 firm, pale dull blue-green above, light yellow-green and glabrous or puberulous below, with 

 small tufts of white hairs in the axils of the veins, 2'-4' long, I'-lf ' wide, with a slender 

 yellow midrib, numerous slender veins deeply impressed and conspicuous above, and 

 prominent cross veinlets; turning deep scarlet and orange color late in the autumn; 



