American Hornbeam 



241 



I. AMERICAN HORNBEAM 



GENUS CARPmUS [TOURNEFORT] LINN^US 

 Species Carpinus caroliniana Walter 



ARPINUS is the ancient name of the European hornbeam, Carpinus 

 Betulus of Linnaeus, the type of the genus. About 12 species are 

 known, most of them natives of northern and central Asia, C. caro- 

 liniana being the only one indigenous in America. This tree occurs 

 in moist woodlands, especially along streams and swamps, from Nova Scotia to 

 Florida, extending westward to Ontario, Minnesota, Kansas, and Texas; it 

 also exists in mountainous parts of Cen- 

 tral America and southern Mexico, but it 

 is possible that this is, however, a differ- 

 ent species. The American hornbeam is 

 usually low, with a rounded top, occa- 

 sionally becoming about 12 meters high, 

 with a trunk 6 dm. thick, and is some- 

 times reduced to shrubby forms. It is 

 also called Blue beech and Water beech, 

 its smooth, gray bark resembling that of 

 Fagus. 



The trunk is characteristically obtusely 

 ridged or fluted; the bark thin, smooth 

 grayish brown, and very close. The very 

 slender young twigs are silky-hairy and 

 green, becoming smooth, reddish or 

 orange, shining and ultimately gray- 

 brown and dull. The buds are pointed, 

 their scales finely hairy. The leaves are ovate-oblong, pointed, often long-pointed, 

 sharply doubly toothed, somewhat unequal-sided, 6 to 10 cm. long, with nerves 

 sunken in the upper surface and prominent on the lower; when young they are 

 silky-hairy, when mature smooth and dull bluish green on the upper side, yel- 

 low green and hairy along the veins beneath ; the slender leaf-stalks are hairy and 

 about 9 mm. long, the stipules hairy, ovate, and pointed. The very small stami- 

 nate and pistillate flowers are borne in separate catkins on the same tree, and 

 open from March to May. The staminate catkins are very densely flowered, nar- 

 rowly cylindric, and droop at or near the ends of short branches of the preced- 

 ing season; they are stalklcss and 2 or 3 cm. in length; each of the flowers 

 consists of several stamens, which are attached to the base of an ovate scale ; the 

 filaments of the stamens are short and two-forked, each fork bearing an anther- 

 sac which has a tuft of hairs at its tip. The pistillate catkins are at the ends of 

 shoots of the season and are loosely several- flowered ; there are two flowers at the 



Fig. 197. — American Hornbeam. 



