BLEMISHES IN WILLOW AND POPLAE. 



67 



Sapsucker work in willows is difficult to identify, both because the 

 pecks in the bark are quickly effaced and because the appearance of 

 the defects in the wood is so often complicated by adventitious buds. 

 The usual appearances in the wood are small light stains and nipple- 

 like projections over the healed wounds and consequent outward 

 curling of the grain of many layers of wood (fig. 16). However, the 

 checks and stains may be large and black (fig. 17), and extensive light 

 stain may permeate the wood in all directions from the original 

 wound. The checks are sometimes filled with softer, lighter-colored 

 wood, and when ad- 

 ventitious buds de- 

 velop they increase 

 the distortion cf the 

 grain and sometimes 

 form true knots. Wil- 

 low wood is little used 

 in the United States, 

 but the distortion of 

 the grain caused by 

 sapsuckers by no 

 means improves it for 

 any purpose. 



Species of Salica- 



ce.e blemished. 



Silver poplar (H.), 

 swamp poplar, black 

 cottonwood (fig. 16), 

 balm of Gilead, tac- 

 mahac (A. A.), Caro- 

 lina poplar (A. M.) 

 (fig. 17), Salix longipes, 

 S. laevigata (A. A.), S. 

 toumeyi (A. A.), S. 

 amygdaloides, S. lasiandra, S. interior, S. sessilifolia, S. missouriensis 

 S.lasiolepis,S. hookeriana, S. taxifolia (A. A.), S. sitchensis, S. discolor 

 and S. scouleriana. 



Fig. 16.— Effects of sapsucker work on wood of black cottonwood 

 (Populus trichocarpa). Checks, stains, buried adventitious buds, 

 and curled grain. 



THE BAYBERRIES (MYRICACEJEj. 



Defects due to sapsucker pecking have been noted in three of the 

 four native arborescent species of this family — the bayberry, wax 

 myrtle, and California bayberry. The blemishes vary from small 

 brown checks to large open ones and black stains up to 2 or 3 inches 

 square, but on account of the limited use made of the wood they are 

 of economic significance in but one species, the California bayberry, 

 wliich is used in cabinet work and turneiy. 



