PEA FAMILY 
in full leaf. The casual observer says it bears no winter 
buds, but he is mistaken, a tiny pair, so minute that they 
are detected only by careful searching, wrapped in down and 
wool, lie sleeping in the axil of every last year’s leaf. One 
is foredoomed to die, but the other, if the fates agree, will 
grow and develop a tuft of great leaves which will transform 
the dead stump into a living tree. 
The leaves of the Kentucky Coffee-tree are doubly com- 
pound and are often three feet long and two feet broad, 
This form of leaf is not unusual among herbs, but is rare 
among forest trees. In our northern flora there are but 
three examples, the Kentucky Coffee-tree, the Honey Locust, 
and the Hercules’ Club. Notwithstanding the size of the 
leaves the tree is sparingly clothed and the foliage effect is 
scanty ; indeed, it has been said of it that the leaves filter the 
light rather than cast a shadow. ‘The expanding leaves are 
conspicuous because of the varied colors of the leaflets ; the 
youngest are bright pink, while those which are older vary 
from green to bronze. 
HONEY LOCUST. HONEY SHUCKS 
Gledttsia triacdnthos. 
Gleditsia commemorates the labors of Gleditsch, a botanist con- 
temporary with Linneeus, 
A tree usually fifty to seventy-five feet hich, with stout sturdy 
trunk, slender spreading often pendulous branches forming a broad 
flat top. Native to the Mississippi valley, it has become naturalized 
in New England. Is tolerant of many soils, but in the bottom lands 
of southern Indiana and Mlinois attains the astonishing proportions of 
one hundred and forty feet in height with a trunk six feet in diameter. 
Roots thick and fibrous, trunk and branches spiny. 
Bark.—Dark, deeply fissured, surface covered by small scales. 
Branchlets light reddish brown at first, later grayish brown. 
IVood.—Red brown ; hard, strong, coarse-grained, durable in con. 
tact with the ground. Sn. gr., 0.6740; weight of cu. ft., 42.00 lbs. 
112 
