WITCH HAZEL FAMILY 



Wood. Bright reddish brown, sap wood nearly white ; heavy, 

 straight, satiny, close-grained, not strong ; will take a beautiful pol- 

 ish ; warps badly in drying. Has been used with good results in 

 the interior finish of sleeping-cars and fine houses. The wood is 

 usually cut in veneers and backed up with some other variety which 

 shrinks and warps less. Sp. gr., 0.5910 ; weight of cu. ft. ,36.83 

 Ibs. 



Winter Buds. Yellow brown, one-fourth of an inch long, acute. 

 The inner scales enlarge with the growing shoot, becoming half an 

 inch long, green tipped with red. 



Leaves. Alternate, three to five inches long, three to seven inches 

 broad, lobed, so as to make a star-shaped leaf of five to seven divis- 

 ions, these divisions acutely pointed, with glandular serrate teeth. 

 The base is truncate or slightly heart-shaped. They come out of 

 the bud plicate, downy, pale green, when full grown are bright 

 green, smooth, shining above, paler beneath. In autumn they vary 

 in color from yellow through crimson to purple. They contain tan- 

 nin and when bruised give a resinous fragrance. Petioles long, 

 slender, terete. Stipules lanceolate, acute, caducous. 



Flowers. March to May, when leaves are half grown ; monoeci- 

 ous, greenish. Staminate flowers in terminal racemes two to three 

 inches long, covered with rusty hairs ; the pistillate in a solitary 

 head on a slender peduncle borne in the axil of an upper leaf. Stam- 

 inate flowers destitute of calyx and corolla, but surrounded by hairy 

 bracts. Stamens indefinite ; filaments short ; anthers introrse. 

 Pistillate flowers with a two-celled, two- 

 beaked ovary, the carpels produced into a 

 long, recurved, persistent style. The ova- 

 ries all more or less cohere and harden in 

 fruit. Ovules many but few mature. 



Fruit. Multicapsular spherical head, an 

 inch to an inch and a half in diameter, 

 hangs on the branches during the winter. 

 The woody capsules mostly filled with abor- 

 tive seeds resembling sawdust. 



The starry five-pointed leaves of the 

 Liquidambar suggest the Sugar Maple, 

 and its fruit balls as they hang upon 

 their long stems resemble those of the 

 Buttonwood. The distinguishing mark 

 of the tree, however, is the peculiar 

 appearance of its small branches and 

 twigs. The bark attaches itself to 

 these in plates edgewise instead of laterally, and a piece of 

 the leafless branch with the aid of a little imagination readily 



162 



Section of a Twig of Sweet 

 Gum Showing the Corky 

 Wings of the Bark. 



