18 
IRON WOOD. 
more easily repressed, and as its branches are numerous it has a closer and 
more tufted foliage. The Hornbeam of Europe, on the other hand, would 
be a valuable acquisition to the forests of America. 
PLATE C VIII. 
A branch with leaves and fruit of the natural size. Fig. 1 , A seed. 
IRON WOOD. 
Carpinus ostrya. C. foliis cordato-ovalibus ; amentis fœmineis oblongioribus ; 
involucris fructiferis, compresso-vesicariis. 
East of the Mississippi the Iron Wood is diffused throughout the United 
States and the provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Lower Can- 
ada. In New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the Southern States, 
where it is most abundant, it bears the name which I have adopted ; in 
Vermont, New Hampshire, and the District of Maine, it is called Lever 
Wood, and by the French of Illinois, Bois dur, hard wood. 
Though the Iron Wood is multiplied in the forests, it nowhere constitutes 
masses even of inconsiderable extent, but is loosely disseminated, and found 
only in cool, fertile, shaded situations. I have nowhere seen it more com- 
mon nor more vigorous than in Gennesee, near lake Erie and lake Ontario ; 
but it is always a tree of the second or even of the third order, rarely 
equaling 35 or 40 feet in height and 12 or 15 inches in diameter, and com- 
monly not exceeding half these dimensions. 
The leaves are alternate, oval-acuminate, and finely and unequally den- 
ticulated. The fertile and barren flowers are borne at the extremity of 
different branches of the same tree, and the fruit is in clusters like hops. 
The small, hard, triangular sèed is contained in a species of reddish, oval, 
inflated bladder, covered at the age of maturity with a fine down, which 
causes a violent irritation of the skin if carelessly handled. 
