474 OUR WOODLAND TREES. 
a height of twenty-five feet in ten years. Its 
maximum age is about sixty years, and it produces 
soft wood, which is used for various purposes by 
the cabinet-maker and turner, more particularly 
for wooden household utensils. In common with 
all soft timber produced by Trees of rapid growth, 
Alder wood is not remarkable for durability. Yet 
this quality it nevertheless exhibits in a singular 
degree of excellence, when it is exposed to per- 
petual dampness. Hence it is largely used, and 
is invaluable for making the wooden piers and 
foundations of bridges, and for other and similar 
purposes. 
The barren flowers of the Alder are borne on 
drooping catkins, and the fertile ones are oval 
—the seed resulting from the latter being in 
the form of little cones which, when ripe, drop 
their seeds, but themselves adhere to the twigs, 
remaining in this position during all the succeed- 
ing winter. 
Two Celtic words, aJ—near—and lan—the bor- 
der or edge of a river—are believed to have given 
rise to the generic name of the Alder; whilst the 
specific name of the subject of this chapter is 
