WITCH HAZEL FAMILY 
Wood.—Bright reddish brown, sapwood nearly white; heavy, 
straight, satiny, close-grained, not strong ; will take a beautiful pol- 
ish ; warps badly in drying. Has been used with good results in 
the interior finish of sleeping-cars and fine houses. The wood is 
usually cut in veneers and backed up with some other variety which 
shrinks and warps less. Sp. gr., 0.5910; weight of cu. ft., 36.83 
lbs. 
Weuter Buds.—Yellow brown, one-fourth of an inch long, acute. 
The inner scales enlarge with the growing shoot, becoming half an 
inch long, green tipped with red. 
Leaves.—Alternate, three to five inches long, three to seven inches 
broad, lobed, so as to make a star-shaped leaf of five to seven divis- 
ions, these divisions acutely pointed, with glandular serrate teeth. 
The base is truncate or slightly heart-shaped. They come out of 
the bud plicate, downy, pale green, when full grown are bright 
green, smooth, shining above, paler beneath. In autumn they vary 
in color from yellow through crimson to purple. They contain tan- 
nin and when bruised give a resinous fragrance. Petioles long, 
slender, terete. Stipules lanceolate, acute, caducous. 
Flowers.—March to May, when leaves are half grown; moneeci- 
ous, greenish. Staminate flowers in terminal racemes two to three 
inches long, covered with rusty hairs; the pistillate in a solitary 
head on aslender peduncle borne in the axil of an upper leaf. Stam- 
inate flowers destitute of calyx and corolla, but surrounded by hairy 
bracts. Stamens indefinite ; filaments short ; anthers introrse. 
Pistillate flowers with a two-celled, two- 
beaked ovary, the carpels produced into a 
long, recurved, persistent style. The ova- 
ries all more or less cohere and harden in 
fruit. Ovules many but few mature. 
fruit.—Multicapsular spherical head, an 
inch to an inch and a half in diameter, 
hangs on the branches during the winter. 
The woody capsules mostly filled with abor- 
tive seeds resembling sawdust. 
The starry five-pointed leaves of the 
Liquidambar suggest the Sugar Maple, 
and its fruit balls as they hang upon 
their long stems resemble those of the 
Buttonwood. The distinguishing mark 
Section of a Twig of Sweet of the tree, however, is the peculiar 
Gum Showing the Corky : 
Wings of the Bark. appearance of its small branches and 
twigs. The bark attaches itself to 
these in plates edgewise instead of laterally, and a piece of 
the leafless branch with the aid of a little imagination readily 
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