HACKBERRY 



The elm was in Roman days and is still used in Italy as a 

 support to the vine. It is interesting, to a stranger, to see a 

 vineyard planted full of small elm trees and the grape vines 

 hanging from their branches or trained from one to another. 

 The manner of cultivation seems not to have changed from 

 ancient times. 



" If that fair elm," he cried, "alone should stand, 



No grapes would glow with gold and tempt the hand ; 

 Or if that vine without her elm should grow, 

 'Twould creep, a poor neglected shrub, below." 



—Ovid. 



HACKBERRY. SUGARBERRY. NETTLE TREE 



Celtis occidentalis. 



The name Celtis is said to refer to the tree having been known to 

 the ancient Celts ; another explanation is that it was the ancient 

 name of a species of lotus. 



A large tree with a slender trunk, rising to the height of one hun- 

 dred and thirty feet, is the Hackberry in the southwest, but in the 

 middle states it attains the height of si.xty feet with a handsome 

 round-topped head and pendulous branches. It prefers rich moist 

 soil, but will grow on gravelly or rocky hillsides. The roots are 

 fibrous and it grows rapidly. Native throughout the United States 

 . east of the Rocky Mountains. 



Bark. — Light brown or silvery gray, broken on the surface into 

 thick appressed scales and sometimes roughened with excrescences. 

 Branchlets slender, light green at first, finally red brown, at length 

 become dark brown tinged with red. 



Wood. — Light yellow ; heavy, soft, coarse-grained, not strong. 

 Used for fencing and cheap furniture. Sp. gr., 0.7287 ; weight of 

 cu. ft., 45.41 lbs. 



Winter Buds. — Axillary, ovate, acute, somewhat flattened, one- 

 fourth of an inch long, light brown. Scales enlarge with the grow- 

 ing shoot, the innermost becoming stipules. No terminal bud is 

 formed. 



Leaves. — Alternate, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, more or less falcate, 

 two and a half to four inches long, one to two inches wide, very 

 oblique at the base, serrate, except at the base which is mostly entire, 

 acute. Three-nerved, midrib and primary veins prominent. They 



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