The Elms and the Hackberries 



or mixed, greenish, axillary staminate, clustered at base of sea- 

 son's shoot; pistillate solitary, in axils of leaves, green, with 

 spreading, 2-horned stigma. Fruits, September, oblong, thin, 

 fleshed berry, i to ^ inch long, purple, sweet; hangs all winter. 

 Preferred habitat, moist soil along streams or marshes. Distribu- 

 tion, Southern Canada west to Puget Sound; south to Florida, 

 Tennessee, Missouri, Texas and New Mexico. Uses: Planted for 

 shade and ornament. Wood used for cheap furniture and fencing. 



It is easy to mistake the hackberry for an elm. The habit 

 of the two trees leads the casual observer astray. It takes a 

 second look to note the finer spray of the hackberry twigs, its 

 more horizontal, less drooping branches. The warty bark is 

 characteristic. The little axillary sugar berries are very different 

 from elm samaras. There are few months in the year when fruits 

 are not to be found, green or ripe, on the tree. They are the 

 delight of birds throughout hard winters. A peculiarity of the 

 foliage is the apparent division of the petiole into three ribs 

 instead of a single midrib. Otherwise the leaf is elm-like, though 

 smaller and brighter green than that of the American elm. 



The hackberry is not familiarly known by people in the 

 regions where it grows. Else it would be transplanted more com- 

 monly to adorn private premises and to shade village streets. 

 There is no danger in digging up well-grown trees, for the roots are 

 fibrous and shallow, and carry an abundance of soil with them. 



The beauty of the hackberry's graceful crown is sometimes 

 marred by a fungus which produces a thick tufting of twigs 

 at the ends of branches. These are called "witches' brooms." 

 Growths of similar appearance are produced by insects on other 

 trees. 



Celtis Mississippiensis, Bosc, is the warty-barked, round- 

 topped hackberry of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys; a graceful 

 tree, and much like C. occidentalis, but smaller. Its leaves are 

 narrow and entire on the margins. The warts of its bark are 

 very noticeable. The berries are orange red. This tree is quite 

 as worthy of cultivation as its larger relative, and the people of 

 Texas know it. The chief virtue of this species as a shade tree is 

 that its foliage hangs on, with little dimming of its brightness, to 

 the very edge of winter. 



The European nettle tree (C Australis) is supposed to have 

 been the famous lotus of classical literature. Homer tells of the 



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