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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



a barbed-wire fence, and woe betide the tres- 

 passer within its precincts. Its prickles are so 

 sharp and so hard to break away from that 

 most of the creatures which disturb birds' nests 

 give them a wide berth. 



The leaves of the greenbrier are usually 

 heart-shaped, or nearly round, with a puckered 

 appearance. About the last in the thicket to 

 fall, the mottled foliage of the frost-painted 

 greenbrier still flutters in the breeze long after 

 the woods are brown and bare. The flowers 

 come from April to June, but they are insig- 

 nificant little blossoms which. invite countless 

 flies to their board rather than gaudy-winged 

 butterflies and long-tongued bees. 



BLACK GUM 

 Nyssa silvatica Marsh [Plate II] 



The black-gum tree occurs between Maine 

 and Michigan on the north and Florida and 

 Texas on the south, preferring a rich, inclined- 

 to-be-swampy soil. Its highest development is 

 reached on the slopes of the southern Appa- 

 lachians, where it sometimes attains a height 

 of a hundred feet and a stump diameter of 

 five feet. It usually is found in association 

 with the white oak, the tulip tree, the sugar 

 maple, the cucumber tree, the wild cherry, the 

 ash, and the buckeye. 



The shape of the tree is variable. Some are 

 tall and graceful; others are broad and squat. 

 When it grows in the forest, the trunk is 

 usually straight and free from defects of any 

 sort. But out in the open the branches are 

 often broken by storms, causing the heart of 

 the tree to decay, thus making it hollow. 



Wide of distribution, the black gum is also 

 a tree with a variety of local names, such as 

 "sour gum," "tupelo," "hornbeam," "old-man's 

 beard," "upland yellow gum," etc. The South 

 calls it the "sour gum," the West the "pepper- 

 idge," and New England the "tupelo." 



The bark is thick, light brown, often tinged 

 with red. In the fall every leaf assumes a rich 

 scarlet hue, making the blazing crown of a 

 hardy tree a notable element in the landscape 

 it graces. 



The flowering season of the black gum is 

 April and May. The blossoms are inconspicu- 

 ous, the petals forming no prominent corolla. 

 The berries of the black gum are drupes, with 

 a pit inside, and are meaty like a cherry. They 

 are rather bitter until frosts have set in, after 

 which the birds are very fond of them. 



The black gum has been called the King Lear 

 of the forest — an apt designation to any one 

 who has observed a fine tree overtaken by the 

 decay of age. Preyed upon by more than fifty 

 species of fungi, it usually begins to die at the 

 top, which gives it a melancholy aspect as 

 death creeps down toward its lower branches. 



WILD BLACK CHERRY 



Prunus serotina Ehrh. [Plate III] 



Beautiful alike in the texture of its wood and 

 in its appearance both in flowering and fruit- 

 ing time, the black wild cherry occurs from 



Nova Scotia west to the Rocky Mountains and 

 as far south as Peru. It thrives either in rich, 

 moist soils or on rocky cliffs ; and while no- 

 where abundant, in favorable localities numer- 

 ous groups are found. 



The tree grows from 50 to 100 feet high, 

 with reddish brown bark marked with horizon- 

 tal lines and rough excrescences. In old trees 

 the bark becomes blackish brown ; in saplings 

 it is either purplish brown or tinged with green. 

 Of rapid growth, it dies young, but serves well 

 as a nurse tree in forest plantations where lux- 

 uriant foliage is desired. The leaves are from 

 two to five inches long, usually turning pale 

 yellow or orange in the fall, although younger 

 growths frequently take on a garnet hue. 

 • -The flowering season of this tree is April to 

 June. The pure white blossoms convert the 

 whole crown into a snowy, fragrant cloud. The 

 bark and leaves are aromatic but bitter, owing 

 to the presence of hydrocyanic acid. The same 

 property occurs in the flowers, which on wilt- 

 ing give off a cyanogenetic odor that is quite 

 objectionable to many people, causing severe 

 headache. Cattle have been killed by eating 

 the wilted leaves, and children made ill by eat- 

 ing too many of the cherries. 



Few trees figure more in the pharmacopoeia 

 than this one. Chemical analysis of the bark 

 reveals starch, resin, tannin, gallic acid, fatty 

 matter, lignin, red coloring matter, salts of cal- 

 cium, potassium and iron, a volatile oil, and 

 prussic acid. The bark is widely used in prepa- 

 rations employed in the treatment of hectic 

 fevers, scrofula, and tuberculosis. 



The fruit ripens in August and September. 

 The cherries, which are dark purple or black, 

 have a thick skin, dark flesh, and abundant and 

 slightly astringent juice. They are a much- 

 prized food in birdland. The fruit is used ex- 

 tensively in making jellies and as a flavoring 

 for alcoholic liquors ; hence its popular names : 

 "whiskey cherry," "rum cherry," etc. Cherry 

 brandy, cherry bounce, cherry cordial — these 

 are but a few of the nectars manufactured 

 from wild black cherries. 



SWEET CHERRY ■ 

 Prunus avium L. [Plate III] 



The sweet cherry is an immigrant from the 

 region of the Caspian Sea and Euphrates 

 River. Just when the sweet cherry landed in 

 America is not recorded. Its naturalization 

 papers have never been located. But it has 

 been thoroughly Americanized. 



The tree has a long list of local names — 

 among them, "bird cherry," "brandy mazzard," 

 attaining a height of 75 feet, it has a fine, 

 rounded, pyramidal crown, when young, but as 

 it grows older it acquires more portliness, 

 spreading out like a field oak. 



Itself a wild growth, it has a distinguished 

 progeny that acknowledge and enjoy domesti- 

 cation — the delicious blackheart, the splendid 

 honeyheart, the fine wax, and the acid sour 

 cherry, all tracing their lineage to the wild 

 sweet cherry or its cousin, the wild sour cherry. 



The flowering time of the sweet cherry is 



