152 TREES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



South to Florida ; west to the Rocky and Wahsatch mountair 

 reaching its greatest size in the river bottoms of the Ohio and it 

 tributaries. 



Habit. A small but handsome tree, 30-40 feet high, with 

 diameter of 1-2 feet. Trunk separating at a small height 

 occasionally a foot or two from the ground, into several wide 

 spreading branches, forming a broad, roundish, open hea 

 characterized by lively green branchlets and foliage, delicat* 

 flowers and abundant, long, loose racemes of yellowish-green 

 keys hanging till late autumn, the stems clinging throughout 

 the winter. 



Bark. Bark of trunk when young, smooth, yellowist 

 green, in old trees becoming grayish-brown and ridgy; smalle 

 branchlets greenish-yellow; season's shoots pale green or 

 sometimes reddish-purple, smooth and shining or sometimes 

 glaucous. 



Winter Buds and Leaves. Buds small, ovate, enclosed in 

 two dull-red, minutely pubescent scales. Leaves pinnately 

 compound, opposite ; leaflets usually 3, sometimes 5 or 7, 2-4 

 inches long, 1^ 2 inches broad, light green above, paler 

 beneath and woolly when opening, slightly pubescent at 

 maturity, ovate or oval, irregularly and remotely coarse- 

 toothed mostly above the middle, 3-lobed or nearly entire; 

 apex acute ; base extremely variable ; veins prominent ; peti- 

 oles 2-3 inches long, enlarging at the base, leaving, when they 

 fall, conspicuous leaf-scars which unite at an angle midway 

 between the winter buds. 



Inflorescence. April 1-15. Flowers appearing at the ends 

 of the preceding year's shoots as the leaf -buds begin to open, 

 small, greenish-yellow ; sterile and fertile on separate trees, 

 the sterile in clusters, on long, hairy, drooping, thread-like 

 stems ; the calyx hairy, 5-lobed, with about 5 hairy-stemmed, 

 much-projecting linear anthers ; pistil none : the fertile in 

 delicate, pendent racemes, scarcely distinguishable at a dis- 

 tance from the foliage ; ovary pubescent, rising out of the 

 calyx ; styles long, divergent ; stamens none. 



Fruit. Loose, pendent, greenish-yellow racemes, 6-8 inches 

 long, the slender-pediceled keys joined at a wide angle, broadest 



