16 
LONG-LEAVED CUCUMBER TREE. 
by the names of Long-leaved Cucumber Tree, and of Indian Physic. The 
soil of these mountains, which is brown, deep, and of an excellent quality, 
is peculiarly favorable to its growth, and it multiplies spontaneously with 
such facility, that I could have collected a thousand young plants in a sin- 
gle day. The Black Oak, the Scarlet Oak, the Red Oak, the Chesnut, the 
Red Ash, the Buck Eye, the Cucumber Tree and the Sorrel Tree compose 
the remainder of the forests which shade these solitary retreats, where, in 
the finest days of summer, the atmosphere is charged with moisture by 
evaporation from the numberless torrents which tumble from the summits. 
The Long-leaved Cucumber Tree is much inferior in size to most of the 
trees with which it grows, attaining only the height of 40 or 45 feet, and 
the diameter of 12 or 15 inches. Its trunk is straight and well shaped, and 
often undivided for half its length ; its limbs, widely spread and sparingly 
ramified, give to the tree, when stript of its leaves, so peculiar an air, that 
it is readily distinguished. 
The leaves are of a light green color, of a fine texture, 8 or 9 inches 
long, and from 4 to 6 inches broad ; on young and vigorous trees they are 
often one-third or even one-half larger. They are smooth on both surfaces, 
acuminate at the summit, widest near the top and narrowest towards the 
bottom. The base is divided into rounded lobes, whence is derived the 
specific name of Auriculata. 
The flowers are 3 or 4 inches in diameter, of a fine white color, of an 
agreeable odor, and situated at the extremity of the young shoots, which 
are of a purplish red dotted with white. 
The cones are oval, 3 or 4 inches long, and like those of the Umbrella 
Tree, of a beautiful rose color when ripe. They differ from those of the 
other species by a little inferiority of size, and by a small appendage which 
terminates the cells. Each cell contains one or two red seeds. 
The wood is soft, spongy, very light, and unfit for use. The bark is 
gray, and always smooth, even on the oldest trees. When the epidermis 
is removed, the cellular tissue, by contact with the air, instantly changes 
from white to yellow. The bark has an agreeable, aromatic odor, and an 
infusion of it in some spirituous liquor is employed as an excellent sudorific 
in rheumatic affections. 
The Long-leaved Cucumber Tree flourishes in the open fields in the 
neighborhood of Paris and of London. It is becoming common in Europe 
in the gardens of amateurs of foreign vegetables, who justly prefer it to the 
Umbrella Tree on account of its flowers, which, though smaller, have the 
advantage of an agreeable perfume. This tree bears equally well the diver- 
sity of the winters of Philadelphia, for several stocks sent by my father 
from the Mountains of North Carolina to Messrs. W. Hamilton and Bar- 
tram, who reside near that city, succeed perfectly in the open garden, and 
have for several years bloomed and yielded seed. The useful and agree- 
