Marcu 3, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 


JIRAUL LEUISTORAY 

TREES IN WINTER. 
V.—The Locust Family. 
THE locust and the honey locust are the two 
most common trees belonging to the pulse family, 
or the family of leguminous plants of which the 
garden pea is a typical representative. The. red 
bud, the Kentucky coffee tree and the yellowwood 
also belong to this group, but these are not so 
widely distributed and generally known as are 
’ the two species first mentioned. 
Although orginally native to a comparatively 
small area along the sides of the Allegheny 
Mountains in Pennsylvania, and Georgia, the 
common locust is now probably the best known 
and most generally’ distributed tree form of this 
great family. For very many years it has been 
widely planted as a shade tree, and in most in- 
stances it has spread by means of underground 
stems, so that the original tree is often repre- 
sented by thickets or groves of large or small 
trees that occupy considerable areas. 
There are many characteristics that serve to 
distinguish the common locust. In winter the 
peculiar paired spines with the bud hidden be- 
tween them in the midst of the broad, rounded 
leai-scar serve at once to identify the branches. 
In spring and throughout the summer the beau- 
tiful compound leaves are sufficiently distinctive. 
In early summer the glorious bunches of fragrant 
white flowers attract universal attention from the 
world of insects as well as from that of man. 
Even after the leaves have fallen in autumn the 
hundreds of clustered pods give a distinctive 


character to the tree as far as it can be seen. The 
bark of the trunk is dark brown, often with a 
slightly reddish tinge more or less vertically fur- 
rowed, sometimes covered with squarish scales. 
This locust is more subject to attack by insects 
than almost any other tree which is commonly 
planted for ornamental purposes. The trunk 
serves as a breeding place of the beautiful beetle 
called the locust borer, while the leaves serve a 
similar purpose for several sorts of leaf miners 
and other insects. As a result, the trees seldom 
flourish as they ought to do and are very likely 
to be disfigured and unsightly. 
The Honey Locust. 
The honey locust may always be known by its 
array of barbed thorns upon branches and trunk. 
No other tree is protected by such formidable 
means of defense. In winter the tree is also not- 

BLOSSOMS OF THE HONEY LOCUST. 
able for the fact that the bark of the latest sea- 
son’s shoots is strikingly different from that of 
the season before, the former being deep, shining, 
reddish-brown, while the latter is of a shining 
light gray color. The buds are inconspicuous, 
being largely hidden in the twig with that part 
which is visible, rounded and projecting only 
slightly above the surface. The honey locust is 
a native tree to a great region, extending from 
Pennsylvania to Nebraska and south to Georgia 
and Texas, but it has been introduced over a 
much wider territory through the agency of man. 
The leaves ‘of the honey locust are of especial 
interest because many of them are doubly com- 
pound, there being very few of our native trees 
of which this is true. 
When growing in its favorite position in a rich 
intervale this tree assumes a broadly open form 
more or less flattened at the tip. In such situa- 
tions it may reach a height of more than a hun- 
dred feet and a trunk diameter of four or five 
feet. The outer bark is grayish black, hard in 
texture, with vertical furrows more or less nu- 
merous, the bark between the furrows being 
somewhat scaly. On younger trees the bark is 
smooth and beautiful and of a dark gray color. 
The greenish blossoms come out with the young 
leaves in June in small clusters, the pollen-bearing 
and the seed-bearing flowers being generally on 
different trees or different branches of the same 
tree. The great seed pods begin to fall early in 
autumn and have inside of them flattened choco- 
late brown seeds which are arranged in indistinct 
cells in the upper half of the pod, the lower third 
of which has between the two walls a curious 
juicy greenish yellow pulp rather sweet in taste. 
The Red Bud. 
The red bud is of interest for many reasons, 
one of the most important of which is that, while 
it is indigenous only inthe Southern States, it is 
hardy when planted in the north. It is especially 
a tree of the underwoods, thriving in the shade 
of the forest and giving to it during the brief 
period of blossoming a striking beauty by means 
of its myriads of pink blossoms upon the bare 
4 
brown branches. These flowers show that the 
trees belong to the great family of legumes, each 
having essentially the structure of a pea or bean 
blossom and each being succeeded by a fruit pod 
which also shows the family relationship of the 
tree. These pods generally remain upon the tree 
until early in winter. 
_In its habit of growth the red bud has well been 
likened to the apple tree. The foliage is clean and 
attractive, and during the blossoming period the 
tree is likely to be the most conspicuous feature 
of the landscape. This species is often called the 
Judas tree, a term which appears to be due to the 
supposed resemblance to the European and 
Asiatic species, to which this name was given be- 
cause of the tradition that the blossoming tree 
was blushing for having been the tree upon which 
Judas hanged himself. 
Two other trees of rather limited distribution 
belong to this family. One of these is the Ken- 
tucky coffee tree and the other is the yellowwood. 
The former has gigantic, doubly compound leaves 
which are very characteristic. In its winter ap- 
pearance the coffee tree is not attractive on ac- 
count of the absence of small branches and ap- 
parently even of the buds upon the large 
branches. These buds, like those of our common 
locust, are almost hidden beneath the bark. It 
seems a marvel that the gigantic leaves can come 
from such inconspicuous objects. The leaves are 
not sent out until late and the flowers do not 
appear until June. The common name of the spe- 
cies is due to the fact that the early settlers in 











Kentucky utilized the seeds in place of the coffee 
berry, but they did not prove a satisfactory sub- 
stitute and the practice was soon abandoned. 
Of all the trees of the eastern region of North 
America the yellowwood seems to be the rarest 
and most local in its distribution. Were it not 
that it has been frequently planted as an ornamen- 
tal tree in parks and private grounds it would be 
a species which comparatively few people would 
ever see. It is native in a comparatively limited 
region in Tennessee, Alabama and North Caro- 
lina. CLARENCE M. WEED, 
