£10 TREES 



tend their range into eastern Asia and northern Africa. 

 Southern and central Asia have their own species. Five 

 are native to our Eastern states. Two European species 

 are in cultivation in the North Atlantic states, especially 

 in the neighborhood of Boston, where they are as familiar 

 as the native species, in street planting. 



Elm trees are valuable for shade and for lumber; their 

 wood is hard, heavy, tough, pale in color, often difficult 

 to split. The trees are distinguished from others by 

 their simple, unsymmetrical, strong-ribbed leaves, saw- 

 toothed, short-stalked, always unequal and often oblique 

 at the base of the blade. The flowers, usually perfect, are 

 inconspicuous, and the seeds are flat, entirely surrounded 

 by a thin papery wing, that forms two hooks at the tip. 

 Wind-carried, these seeds have had much to do with 

 the wide distribution of elms. 



The White Elm 



Ulmus Americana^ Linn. 



The white or American elm is widely known as a tall, 

 graceful wide-spreading tree, usually of symmetrical, 

 vase shape, with slender limbs and drooping twigs. 

 (See illustration, page 215.) It has the rough furrowed 

 bark characteristic of the genus, dark or light gray, with 

 paler branches and red-brown twigs. The leaves are 

 alternate, two to six inches long, broadest near the 

 abruptly pointed apex. Distinctly one-sided at the 

 tapering base, the leaves have a fashion of arranging 

 themselves in a flat spray so as to present almost a con- 

 tinuous leaf area to the sun. One spray overlaps another, 



