FOREST TKEESo 



129 



Mountain regions, and west to the Pacific. Among the latter 

 there are two which may be placed in the list as trees. 



Ceonothus spinosuSj Nutt. — Red- wood. — Leaves thick, rather 

 rough on surface, entire, oblong, on slender stalks. Small twigs 

 somewhat spiny. Flowers blue and very fragrant. Fruit a 

 small drupe coated with rosin. A small tree, sometimes thirty 

 feet high in the Coast Ranges of Southern California, where it 

 is known as Red- wood," from the color of the wood. 



C. thyrsiflorus, Esch. — California Lilac— Leaves thick, ob- 

 long, smooth, and shiny above, somewhat downy beneath. 

 Flowers bright blue in large, showy, compound racemes, re- 

 sembling very much the flowers of the common lilac of our 

 gardens. A tall shrub, sometimes reaching a hight of twenty 

 feet in the Coast Ranges, from Monterey to Humboldt County, 

 Cal. 



CELTis. — HaMerry, Nettle-tree, 



A genus of the Nettle Family, clor^ely allied to the Elm, but 

 fruit a small berry-like drupe, containing only one seed. Flowers 

 perfect or polygamous, one-petioled, singly or only a few in a 

 cluster of a greenish color. We have some four or five species, 

 and several natural or local varieties. 



Celtis breyipes, Watson. — Leaves slightly pubescent, obliquely, 

 ovate-oblong, pointed, an inch and a half long. Fruit about a 

 quarter of an inch long, black. A small tree twenty or thirty 

 feet high, and stem a foot or more in diameter. Wood soft, 

 tough, but of little value. South-eastern Arizona. 



C. Mississippiensis, Bosc. — Southern Nettle Tree. — Young leaves 

 and twigs silky ; le.aves two inches long, long-ovate, pointed, 

 sharply serrate, abruptly contracted at base ; soon becoming 

 rusty beneath. Fruit dark purple, of the size shown in figure 

 36, with sweet pulp, greedily eaten by several species of birds. 

 A very large tree in the Mississippi Valley, from Kentucky 

 southward, differing very slightly from the next. 



C. occidentalis. — American Hackberry, Nettle-tree, Sugar-berry, 

 False Elm, etc., etc. — Very similar to the last, and by some au- 

 thors considered a distinct species, and by others only a north- 

 ern variety. Wood soft, but difficult to split. A small tree in 

 Vermont, and sparingly westward to Nebraska and southward, 

 also along the Atlantic Coast in New Jersey, Long Island and 

 southward to Florida. A rather pretty tree, seldom infested by 



