THE SIL\T^R BELL TREES 123 



lost in Southern woods, quenches his thirst by nibbKng 

 young shoots of the sour- wood. 



After the flower comes a downy capsule, five-celled, with 

 numerous pointed seeds. The leaves are not unlike those 

 of a plum tree except that they attain a length of five to 

 seven inches. La the woods from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 

 Indiana, southward to Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and 

 Arkansas this tree ranges, and we often see it in cultivation 

 as far north as Boston. It grows to its largest size on the 

 western slopes of the Big Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, 

 attaining here a height of sixty feet. In cultivation it is 

 one of the little, slender-stemmed, dainty trees, beautiful 

 at any season. It is the sole representative of its genus in 

 the world, so far as botanists know. 



THE SILVER BELL TREES 



The silver bell tree (Mohrodendron teiraptera, Britt.) 

 earns its name in May when among the green leaves the 

 clustered bell flowers gradually pale from green to white, 

 with rosy tints that seem to come from the ruddy flower- 

 stems. A "snowdrop tree" may be eighty feet in height 

 in the mountains of east Tennessee and western North 

 Carolina, but ordinarily we see it in gardens and parks as a 

 delicate, slender-branched tree, that stands out from every 

 other species in the border as the loveliest thing that blooms 

 there. 



Not a moment in spring lacks interest if one has a little 

 mohrodendron tree to watch. For weeks the ruddy twigs 

 grow ruddier by the opening of leaf and flower buds; then 

 comes the slow fading of the flowers, when sun and rain 



