THE FOREST 21 
There are several varieties of these "cucumber" and 
"umbrella" trees, as the people call them. Their 
large, light-green leaves placed in a circle at the ends 
of the twigs have something of a tropical appear- 
ance, and there is also clinging to them that myste- 
rious romance of the East, for although there are 
some fifteen or more species of this genus in the 
world, all of them belong to eastern Asia and the 
eastern United States, some four or five species 
being common in our Southern mountains. 
Another tree which is found only in the Orient 
and the eastern part of the New World is the sour- 
gum, pepperidge, or tupelo, whose dark, close-ridged 
bark and twisted crown, weather-beaten attitude, 
and somewhat scanty foliage give it an air of indi- 
viduality that could not be dispensed with in the 
sentiment of the forest. Its wood is so tough that 
it soon dulls an axe, and lazy negroes were put to 
chopping it in slavery times, so the people say. 
The sweet-gum, or liquidambar, also abundant 
here, is not related to the sour-gum, but belongs to 
the romantic witch-hazel family, which perhaps is 
why its juices are so aromatic — the tree exuding 
copal at the slightest incision — and why its bark is 
so curiously ridged. 
Fortunately the larger gum trees, both sweet and 
sour, are apt to be hollow at the base, otherwise 
where would the mountaineer get his "bee-gums"? 
And what could replace in the landscape those rows 
of cylindrical hives, roofed with a board-end or a 
flat stone, that stand about wherever the owner 
