478 NliW ENGLAND TREES IN WINTER. 



WITCH HAZEL 



Hamamelis virginiana L. 



HABIT — A large shrub or small tree occasionaliy 25-30 ft. in height 



with a trunk diameter of 10-14 inches, with shi.)rt trunk, spreading- 

 crooked branches with conspicuous persistent fruiting- capsules, form- 

 ing a broad open head. 



BARK — Light brown, more or less mottled, generally smooth or 

 minutely scaly. 



TWIGS — Rather slender, light orange brown, smooth and shining, or 

 downy especially toward apex, more or less zigzag. LENTICELS — few, 

 scattered, whitish dots. 



LEAP-SCARS — Alternate, 2-ranked, small, inversely triangular. 

 STIPULE- SCARS- — distinct, narrow, oblong, somewhat separate from 

 leaf-scar. BUNDLE-SCARS — whitish in conspicuous contrast to dark 

 brown surface of leaf-scar, generally 3 and separate or these may be 

 compounded or more or less confluent. 



BUDS — Stalked, flattish. slightly curved, densely downy with short 

 fine light to dark olive brown hairs; terminal bud larger than laterals. 

 5-12 mm. long-. BUD-SCALES — an outer pair of relatively thin scales 

 corresponding to stipules and often represented by only a scar accom- 

 panying the outermost thick downy laterally folded undeveloped leaf, 

 which with smaller leaves within serves the function of bud-scales. The 

 bud is therefore essentially naked. 



FRUIT — Produced in abundance, a downy 2-chambered capsule about 

 15 mm. long, surrounded by the persistent calyx, discharging in autumn 

 4 shining, brown, oblong seeds and remaining widely gaping on the 

 tree throughout winter (see lower part of twig picture). The plant 

 produces ilowers in the autumn at the same time with the ripening of 

 the fruit, and the remains of the flowers, showing tlie 4 downy sepals 

 with their enclosing bracts, are to be found in clusters on the recent 

 twigs (upper part of twig picture). 



COMPARISONS — In habitat and in its stalked buds the Witch Hazel 

 resembles the Alders. The buds of the latter lu.>\vever are essentially 

 smooth or at most flne-downy, not hairy and their fruit is a woody 

 cone not a capsule. 



DISTRIBL'TIOX — In moist or wet often rocky places. Nova Scotia to 

 Ontario and Minnesuta; south to Florida and Ttxas; west to eastern 

 Nebraska. 



IN NEW ENGLAND — Common throughout. 



AVOOD — Heavy, hard, very close-grained, light brown tinged with red, 

 with thick nearly white sapwood of 30-40 layers uf annual gruwLh. The 

 bark Is slightly astringent and though not known to liave essential 

 properties is largely used in the form of fluid extracts and decoctions 

 as a popular application for sprains and bruises. Pond's Extract being 

 made by distilling the bark in dilute alcohol. Probably equally 

 efhcaclous is the use of the twigs as divining rods to locate water and 

 minerals. 



