I30 



AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



will have bark which is at least similar (as with the 

 birches), and is in some cases almost identical (as with 

 the young red and silver maples, or the hard and red 

 maples when very old, or the slippery and white elms — 

 and it takes a schoolboy to. tell a slippery elm from the 

 others) ; but it is not uncommon to find species that 

 are sap relations, and yet clothed in bark which is 

 totally different (as, for example, the ironwood and 

 blue beech), or which is at least noticeably so (as with 

 the white and red oaks) . On the other hand, the bark 

 of that noble beech yonder is so much like the grayish 

 bark of the little blue beech on the slope there that they 

 seem the same species, even though the bark of the 

 latter is somewhat fluted and wavy in appearance; and 

 the leaves, too, are quite similar. Yet are they totally 

 different, in family and genus (the one Fagus, the other 

 Carpinus), in quality of wood fiber (the blue beech 

 being sometimes known as ironwood), in their prefer- 

 ences of soil and situation, and in their seed pods (those 

 of the latter being like hops, whence one of its common 

 names, the hop hornbeam). And so with the white 

 elms and this true little ironwood beside us. How 

 alike the leaves and bark, and yet how unlike, after 

 all; for the leaves of the elm are rough to the touch 

 and thick in texture, and, if we cut through it, its bark 

 is seen to be much thicker than the ironwood's, and the 

 wood much softer. I have frequently mistaken these 

 two kinds for one another at a distance, and especially 

 when my eyes have been busied with a multitude of 

 other trees, but on cutting into the wood one can soon 

 detect the species, for the wood of the elm is ring- 

 porous in its nature, while that of the ironwood is very 



