Handbook of Trees of the Nortiieen States and Canada. 



73 



This curious and rare tree has the distinc- 

 tion of producing wood which is the lightest 

 in weight of all known woods, it is a small 

 tree, only under the most favorable con- 

 ditions attaining the height of 20 ft. with loose 

 open head of few spreading branches and trunk 

 5-0 in. in diameter. Few other trees are so 

 strictly aquatic in distribution, as it thrives 

 best in permanently inundated swamps and 

 deep sloughs, where its roots are constantly 

 wet, and to visit it one must go in a boat or 

 wade through mud and water. Individuals 

 growing in less permanently inundated locali- 

 ties, where the water supply is less constant, 

 plainly suffer the deprivation and hardly 

 grow to the height of a man's shoulder. It 

 attains its largest size in the swamps which 

 border the St. Francis River of Missouri and 

 Arkansas, growing in the shade of other swamp 

 loving trees as the Bald Cypress, Cotton Gum, 

 Planer Tree, Pumpkin Ash, etc. Separated 

 from this localitj' by a long interval it appears 

 again in the saline marshes of the Gulf coast 

 of Florida near Appalaehicola, where it was 

 first found and made known to science. Far 

 to the westward it is also found in the swamps 

 along the Brazos River near Columbia, Texas. 

 The trunks are vested in a smooth mottled 

 gray bark slightly fissured at their bases, 

 which are much swollen beneath the water line 

 and usually bearing a mass of dark moss and 

 rootlets. 



The wood is of a pale lemon yellow color 

 with lighter sap-wood. It is lighter than cork 

 in weight, having a specific gravity, as re- 

 ported by Prof. Trelease, of 0.207, while that 

 of common cork (the bark of Quercus suber, 

 etc.) is 0.240. It is occasionally used by 

 fishermen for making floats for their nets. 

 For botanical characters see the ordinal and 

 generic descriptions, this being the only 

 species. 1 



I. For ijenus see p. 425. 



