204 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



Winter-buds ovoid, light chestnut-brown, slightly puberulous, ' long. Bark about \' 

 thick, broken into thick narrow oblong closely appressed plate-like light brown scales 

 slightly tinged with red on the surface. Wood strong, hard, tough, durable, light brown 

 tinged with red or often nearly white, with thick pale sapwood of 40-50 layers of annual 

 growth; used for fence-posts., handles of tools, mallets, and other small articles. 



Distribution. Dry gravelly slopes and ridges often in the shade of oaks and other large 

 trees; Island of Cape Breton and the shores of the Bay of Chaleur, through the valley of 

 the St. Lawrence River, and along the northern shores of Lake Huron to western Ontario, 

 Manitoba, Minnesota, eastern North Dakota, the foothills of the Black Hills of South Da- 

 kota, eastern, northern and northwestern Nebraska, eastern Kansas and Oklahoma, and 

 southward to northern Florida and eastern Texas; most abundant and of its largest size in 

 southern Arkansas and in Texas. From Quebec and Ontario to western New England, 

 western New York, Ohio and in Central Michigan, the glandular form prevails: the two 

 forms occur in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, northern Illinois, southwestern Mis- 

 souri, Oklahoma, and southward on the high Appalachian Mountains. 



2. Ostrya Knowltonii Cov. Ironwood. 



Leaves elliptic to obovate, acute or round at apex, gradually narrowed and often un- 

 equal at the rounded cuneate rarely cordate base, sharply serrate with small triangular 

 callous teeth, covered with loose pale tomentum when they unfold, at maturity dark 

 yellow-green and pilose above,, pale and soft-pubescent below, l'-2' long, l'-l' wide, with 

 a slender yellow midrib slightly raised on the upper side, and slender primary veins con- 

 nected by obscure reticulate veinlets; turning dull yellow in the autumn before falling; 

 petioles j'-J' long; stipules pale yellow-green, often tinged with red toward the apex, 

 %' long, about \' wide. Flowers: staminate aments on stout stalks covered with rufous 

 tomentum and sometimes \' long, rarely sessile, about \' long during their first season, with 



Fig. 193 



dark brown puberulous scales gradually contracted into a long slender subulate point, 

 becoming when the flowers open l'-lj' long, with broadly ovate concave scales ab- 

 ruptly narrowed into a nearly triangular point, yellow-green near the base, bright red 

 above the middle; pistillate aments about \' long, with ovate-lanceolate light yellow-green 

 puberulous scales ciliate on the margins- Fruit: nuts \' long, gradually narrowed at the 

 apex, their involucres 1' long, nearly glabrous at the apex, sometimes slightly stained 

 with red toward the base, in clusters l'-l|' long and about f broad, on stems \' in 

 length. 



