WILD RELATIVES OF OUR ORCHARD TREES
The ApplesaEuro"The PlumsaEuro"The CherriesaEuro"The HawthornsaEuro"The
Service-berriesaEuro"The HackberriesaEuro"The MulberriesaEuro"The FigsaEuro"The
PapawsaEuro"The Pond ApplesaEuro"The Persimmons
THE APPLES
The chance apple tree beside the road, with fruit too gnarly to eat,
is common on roadsides throughout New England. Occasionally one of
these trees bears edible fruit, but this is not the rule. Perhaps the
seed thus planted was from the core of a very delicious apple, nibbled
close, and thrown away with regret. But trees thus planted are
seedlings and seedling apple trees "revert" to the ancient parent of
the race, the wild apple of eastern Asia. Horticulture began long ago
to improve these wild trees, and through the centuries improvement and
variation have stocked the orchards of all temperate countries with
the multitude of varieties we know. A visit in October to Nova Scotia
or to the Yakima Valley in Washington, is an eye-opener. Thousands of
acres of the choicest varieties of this most satisfying of all fruits
show the debt we owe to patient scientists, whose work has so enriched
the food supply of the world.
The pear, the quince, and the curious medlar, with its core exposed at
the blossom end--all relatives of the apple--trace their lineage to
European and Asiatic wild ancestors. The Siberian crab, native of
northern Asia, is the parent of our hard-fleshed, slender-stemmed
garden crabapples. Japan has given us some wonderful apple trees, with
fruit no larger than cherries, cultivated solely for their flowers.
The ornamental flora of America has been greatly enriched by these
varieties.
Four native apples are found in American woods. Horticulturists have
produced new varieties by crossing some of these sturdy natives with
cultivated apples, or their seedling offspring.
=The Prairie Crab=
_Malus IoA"nsis_, Britt.
The prairie crabapple is the woolly twigged, pink-blossomed wild crab
of the woods, from Minnesota and Wisconsin to Oklahoma, Texas, and
Louisiana. It has crossed with the roadside "wilding" trees and
produced a hybrid known to horticulture as the Soulard apple, from its
discoverer. These wild trees bear fruit that is distinctly an
improvement upon that of either parent. It is regarded as a distinctly
promising apple for the coldest of the prairie states, and has already
become the parent of several improved varieties.
=The Wild Crab=
_M. coronaria_. Mill.
Throughout the wooded regions, from the Great Lakes to Texas and
Alabama, the wild crabapple brightens the spring landscape with its
rose-colored, spicy-scented blossoms. The little trees huddle
together, their flat tops often matted and reaching out sidewise from
under the shade of the other forest trees. The twigs are crabbed
indeed in winter, but they silver over with the young foliage in
April. The coral flower buds sprinkle the new leaves, and through May
a great burst of rose-colored bloom overspreads the tree-tops. It is
not sweetness merely that these flowers exhale, but an exquisite,
spicy, stimulating fragrance, by which one always remembers them.
The pioneers made jellies and preserves out of the little green apples
(_see illustrations, pages 150-151_), which lost some of their acrid
quality by hanging on until after a good frost. There are those who
still gather these fruits as their parents and grandparents did. In
their opinion the wild tang and the indescribable piquancy of flavor
in jellies made from this fruit are unmatched by those of any other
fruit that grows.
THE PLUMS
The genus _prunus_ belongs to the rose family and includes shrubs and
trees with stone fruits. Of the over one hundred species, thirty are
native to North America; but ten of them assume tree form, and all but
one are small trees. Related to them are the garden cherries and
plums, native to other countries, and the peach, the apricot, and the
almond, found in this country only in horticultural varieties. The
wood of _prunus_ is close-grained, solid, and durable, and a few of
the species are important timber trees. The simplest way to identify a
member of the genus is to break a twig at any season of the year and
taste the sap. If it is bitter and astringent with hydrocyanic acid
(the flavor we get in fresh peach-pits and bitter almonds), we may be
sure we have run the tree down to the genus _prunus_.
=The Wild Red Plum=
_Prunus Americanus_, Marsh.
The wild red or yellow plum forms dense thickets in moist woods and
along river banks from New York to Texas and Colorado. Its leafless,
gnarled, and thorny twigs are covered in spring with dense clusters of
white bloom, honey-sweet in fragrance, a carnival of pleasure and
profit to bees and other insects. In hot weather this nectar often
ferments and sours before the blossoms fall. The abundant dry pollen
is scattered by the wind. The plum crop depends more upon wind than
upon insects, for the pollination period is very brief.
After the frost in early autumn, the pioneers of the prairie used
always to make a holiday in the woods and bring home by wagon-loads
the spicy, acid plums which crowded the branches and fairly lit up the
thicket with the orange and red color of their puckery, thick skins.
In a land where fruit orchards were newly planted, "plum butter" made
from the fruit of nature's orchards was gratefully acceptable through
the long winters. Even when home-grown sorghum molasses was the only
available sweetening, the healthy appetites of prairie boys and girls
accepted this "spread" on the bread and butter of noon-day school
lunches, as a matter of course.
[Illustration: _See page 130_
FLOWERS, FRUIT, AND ODD LEAF PATTERNS OF THE SASSAFRAS TREE]
[Illustration: _See page 141_
FOLIAGE AND FLOWER CLUSTER OF THE SMOOTH SUMACH]
[Illustration: _See page 148_
BUDS, LEAVES, AND FRUIT OF THE WILD CRABAPPLE]
[Illustration: _See page 151_
THE CANADA PLUM
Its white, fragrant flowers turn pink in fading; and its stiff,
zigzag branches are beset with spiny stubs]
=The Canada Plum=
_P. nigra._, Ait.
The Canada plum (_see illustration, page 151_) whose range dips down
into the northern tier of states, is so near like the previous species
as to be called by Waugh a mere variety. Its leaves are broad and
large, and the flowers and fruit larger. A peculiarity of blossoming
time is that the petals turn pink before they fall. This tree
furnished the settler with a relish for his hard fare, and the
horticulturist a hardy stock on which to graft scions of tenderer and
better varieties of plums. It is a tree well worth bringing in from
the woods to set in a bare fence-corner that will be beautified by the
blossoms in spring, and in late summer by the bright orange-colored
fruit against the ruddy foliage.
Exotic plums have greatly enriched our horticulture, giving us fruits
that vie with the peach in size and lusciousness. In New-England
gardens, the damsons, green gages and big red plums are imported
varieties of the woolly twigged, thick-leaved European, _P.
domestica_, which refused utterly to feel at home on its own roots in
the great middle prairies of the country. These European plums have
found a congenial home in the mild climate of the West Coast.
Japan has furnished to the Middle West and South a hardy, prolific
species, _P. triflora_, generally immune to the black knot, a fungous
disease which attacks native plums. Crosses between the Japanese and
American native plums promise well. California now ranks first in
prune raising as an industry, with France a close second. Prunes are
the dried fruit of certain sweet, fleshy kinds of plums. Many
cultivated varieties of Japanese plums have enriched the horticulture
of our West Coast.
The almond, now grown commercially in California, is the one member of
the genus prunus whose flesh is dry and woody, and whose pit is a
commercial nut.
THE CHERRIES
Small-fruited members of the genus prunus, wild and cultivated, are
grouped under the popular name, cherries, by common consent. The pie
cherry of New-England gardens is _prunus cerasus_, Linn. It often runs
wild from gardens, forming roadside thickets, with small sour red
fruits, as nearly worthless as at home in the wilds of Europe and
Asia. This tree has, through cultivation, given rise to two groups of
sour cherries cultivated in America. The early, light-red varieties,
with uncolored juice, of which the Early Richmond is a familiar type,
and the late, dark-red varieties, with colored juice, of which the
English Morello is the type.
The sweet cherry of Europe (_P. Avium_, Linn.) has given us our
cultivated sweet cherries, whose fruit is more or less heart-shaped.
Japan celebrates each spring the festival of cherry blossom time, a
great national fAŠte, when the gardens burst suddenly into the
marvelous bloom of _Sakura_, the cherry tree, symbol of happiness, in
which people of all classes delight. The native species (_P.
pseudo-Cerasus_), has been cultivated by Japanese artist-gardeners in
the one direction of beauty for centuries. Not in flowers alone, but
in leaf, in branching habit, and even in bark, beauty has been the
ideal toward which patience and skill have striven successfully.
"Spring is the season of the eye," says the Japanese poet. Of all
their national flower holidays, cherry blossom time, in the third
month, is the climax.
=The Wild Cherry=
_Prunus Pennsylvanica_, Linn.
The wild red, bird, or pin cherry grows in rocky woods, forming
thickets and valuable nurse trees to hardwoods, from Newfoundland to
Georgia, and west to the Rocky Mountains. The birds enjoy the ruddy
little fruits and hold high carnival in June among the shining leaves.
Many an ugly ravine is clothed with verdure and whitened with
nectar-laden flowers by this comparatively worthless, short-lived
tree; and in many burnt-over districts, the bird-sown pits strike
root, and the young trees render a distinct service to forestry by
this young growth, which is gone by the time the pines and hardwoods
it has nursed require the ground for their spreading roots.
=The Wild Black Cherry=
_P. serotina_, Ehrh.
The wild black cherry or rum cherry (_see illustration, page 166_), is
the substantial lumber tree of the genus, whose ponderous trunk
furnishes cherry wood, vying with mahogany and rosewood in the esteem
of the cabinet-maker, who uses cherry for veneer oftener than for
solid furniture.
The drug trade depends upon this tree for a tonic derived from its
bark, roots, and fruit. Cherry brandies, cordials, and cherry bounce,
that good old-fashioned homebrewed beverage, are made from the
heavy-clustered fruits that hang until late summer, turning black and
losing their astringency when dead ripe.
From Ontario to Dakota, and south to Florida and Texas, this tree is
found, reaching its best estate in moist, rich soil, but climbing
mountain canyons at elevations of from five to seven thousand feet. A
worthy shade and park tree, the black cherry is charmingly
unconventional, carrying its mass of drooping foliage with the grace
of a willow, its satiny brown bark curling at the edges of irregular
plates like that of the cherry birch.
=The Choke Cherry=
_P. Virginiana_, Linn.
The choke cherry is a miniature tree no higher than a thrifty lilac
bush, from the Eastern states to the Mississippi, but between Nebraska
and northern Texas it reaches thirty-five feet in height. The trunk is
always short, often crooked or leaning, and never exceeds one foot in
diameter. Its shiny bark, long racemed flowers and fruit, and the
pungent odor of its leaves and bark might lead one to confuse it with
a black cherry sapling. But there is a marked difference between the
two species. The choke cherry's odor is not only pungent, but rank and
disagreeable besides. The leaf of the choke cherry is a wide and
abruptly pointed oval. The fruit until dead ripe is red or yellow, and
so puckery, harsh, and bitter that children, who eat the black
cherries eagerly, cannot be persuaded to taste choke cherries a second
time.
Birds are not so fastidious; they often strip the trees before the
berries darken. It is probably by these unconscious agents of seed
distribution that choke-cherry pits are scattered. From the Arctic
Circle to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky
Mountains this worthless little choke cherry is found in all wooded
regions.
THE HAWTHORNS
In the same rose family with apples, plums, cherries, and
service-berries is listed the genus _Crataegus_, a shrubby race of
trees, undersized as a rule, with stiff, zigzag branches set with
thorns. Over one hundred species have been described by Charles
Sargent in his "Manual of Trees of North America," published in 1905.
The centre of distribution for the hawthorn is undoubtedly the eastern
United States. From Newfoundland the woods are full of them. A few
species belong to the Rocky Mountain region, a few to the states
farther west. Europe and Asia each has a few native hawthorns.
=The English Hawthorn=
_Crataegus oxyacantha_, Linn.
The English hawthorn is the best-known species in the world. When it
first came into cultivation, no man knows. Englishmen will tell you it
has always formed the hedge-rows of the countryside. This is the
"blossoming May." The sweetness of its flowers, snowy white, or pink,
or rose-colored, turns rural England into a garden, while linnets and
skylarks fill the green lanes with music.
American "forests primeval" were swept with the woodman's axe before
the hawthorns had their chance to assert themselves sufficiently to
attract the attention of botanists and horticulturists. The showy
flowers and fruits, the vivid coloring of autumn foliage, and the
striking picturesqueness of the bare tree, with its rigid branches
armed with menacing thorns, give most of these little trees
attractiveness at any season. They grow in any soil and in any
situation, and show the most remarkable improvement when cultivated.
Their roots thrive in heavy clay. When young the little trees may be
easily transplanted from the wild. They come readily from seed, though
in most species the seed takes two years to germinate.
With few exceptions, the flowers of our hawthorns are pure
white, perfect, their parts in multiples of five--a family trait. Each
flower is a miniature white rose. Rounded corymbs of these flowers on
short side twigs cover the tree with a robe of white after the leaves
appear. In autumn little fleshy fruits that look like apples, cluster
on the twigs. Inside the thick skin, the flesh is mealy and sweetish
around a few hard nutlets that contain the seed. As a rule, the fruits
are red. In a few species they are orange; in still fewer, yellow,
blue, or black.
It is not practicable to describe the many varieties of our native
hawthorns in a volume of the scope of this one. A few of the most
distinctive species only can be included, but no one will ever confuse
a hawthorn with any other tree.
=The Cockspur Thorn=
_C. Crus-galli_, Linn.
The cockspur thorn is a small, handsome tree, fifteen to twenty feet
high, with stiff branches in a broad round head. The thorns on the
sides of the twig are three to four inches long, sometimes when old
becoming branched, and reaching a length of six or eight inches. Stout
and brown or gray, they often curve, striking downward as a rule, on
the horizontal branches. The leaves, thick, leathery, lustrous, dark
green above, pale beneath, one to four inches long, taper to a short
stout stalk, seeming to stand on tiptoe, as if to keep out of the way
of the thorns. From the ground up, the tree is clothed in bark that is
bright and polished, shading from reddish brown to gray. The flowers
come late, in showy clusters; and the fruit gleams red against the
reddening leaves. As winter comes on the leaves fall and the branches
are brightened by the fruit clusters which are not taken by the birds
(_see illustration, page 167_). All the year long the cockspur thorn
is a beautiful, ornamental tree and a competent hedge plant, popular
alike in Europe and America.
=The Scarlet Haw=
_C. pruinosa_, K. Koch.
The scarlet haw found from Vermont to Georgia, and west to Missouri,
prefers limestone soil of mountain slopes, and is more picturesque
than beautiful. The foliage is distinctive; it is dark, blue-green,
smooth, and leathery, pale beneath, and turns in autumn to brilliant
orange. In summer the pale fruit wears a pale bloom but at maturity it
is dark purplish red and shiny.
=The Red Haw=
_C. mollis_, Scheele
The red haw is the type of a large group, ample in size, fine in form
and coloring, of fruit and foliage. This tree reaches forty feet in
height, its round head rising above the tall trunk, with stout
branchlets and stubby, shiny thorns.
The twigs are coated with pale hairs, the young leaves, and ultimately
the leaf-linings and petioles are hairy, and the fruits are downy,
marked with dark dots.
The only fault the landscape gardener can find with this red haw, is
that its abundant fruit, ripe in late summer, falls in September. The
species is found from Ohio to Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.
=The Scarlet Haw=
_C. coccinea_, Linn.
The scarlet haw, native of the Northeastern states, is one of the
oldest native thorns in cultivation. It is a favorite in New England
gardens, because of its abundant bloom, deep crimson fruit and vivid
autumn foliage. It is a shrubby, round-headed tree, with stout
ascending branches, set with thorns an inch or more in length.
=The Black Haw=
_C. Douglasii_, Lindl.
In the West the black haw is a round-headed, native tree found from
Puget Sound southward through California and eastward to Colorado and
New Mexico. It is a round-headed tree reaching forty feet in height,
in moist soil. Its distinguishing feature is the black fruit, ripe in
August and September, lustrous, thin-fleshed, sweet, one-half an inch
long. The thorns are stout and sharp, rarely exceeding one inch in
length. The leathery dark-green leaves, one to four inches long,
commend this black-fruited thorn of the West to the Eastern
horticulturists. It has proved hardy in gardens to the Atlantic
seaboard and in Nova Scotia.
THE SERVICE-BERRIES
A small genus of pretty, slender trees related to apples, and in the
rose family, has representatives in every continent of the Northern
Hemisphere, and also in North Africa. Their natural range is greatly
extended by the efforts of horticulturists, for the trees are among
the best flowering species.
=The Service-berry=
_Amelanchier Canadensis_, T. & G.
The Eastern service-berry, June-berry, or shad-bush, is often seen in
parks and on lawns; its delicate, purple-brown branches covered in
April, before the oval leaves appear, with loose, drooping clusters of
white flowers. (_See illustration, page 182._) Under each is a pair of
red silky bracts and the infant leaves are red and silky, all adding
their warmth of color when the tree is white with bloom. The blossoms
pass quickly, just about the time the shad run up the rivers to spawn.
We may easily trace this common name to the early American colonists
who frugally fished the streams when the shad were running, and noted
the charming little trees lighting up the river banks with their
delicate blossoms, when all the woods around them were still asleep.
In June the juicy red berries call the birds to a feast. Then the
little tree quite loses its identity, for the forest is roofed with
green, and June-berries are quite overshadowed by more self-assertive
species.
The borders of woods in rich upland soil, from Newfoundland to the
Dakotas and south to the Gulf, are the habitat and range of this
charming little tree.
=The Western Service-berry=
_A. alnifolia_, Nutt.
The Western service-berry grows over a vast territory which extends
from the Yukon River south through the Coast Ranges to northern
California and eastward to Manitoba and northern Michigan. In the rich
bottom lands of the lower Columbia River, and on the prairies about
Puget Sound, it reaches twenty feet in height, and its nutritious,
pungent fruits are gathered in quantities and dried for winter food by
the Indians. Indeed, the horticulturists consider this large juicy
fine-flavored, black berry quite worthy of cultivation, as it grows in
the wild to one inch in diameter--the average size of wild plums.
THE HACKBERRIES
Fifty or sixty tropical and temperate-zone species of hackberries
include two North American trees which have considerable value for
shade and ornamental planting. One hardy Japanese species has been
introduced; three exotic species are in cultivation in the South. One
is from South Africa, a second from the Mediterranean basin, and a
third from the Orient.
It is easy to mistake the hackberry for an elm; the habits of the two
trees lead the casual observer astray. The leaf is elm-like, though
smaller and brighter green than the foliage of the American elm. A
peculiarity of the foliage is the apparent division of the petiole
into three main ribs, instead of a single midrib. At base, the leaves
are always unsymmetrical. The bark is broken into thick ridges set
with warts, separated by deep fissures.
The absence of terminal buds induces a forking habit, which makes the
branches of a hackberry tree gnarled and picturesque. The hackberry is
not familiarly known by the inhabitants of the regions where it grows,
else it would more commonly be transplanted to adorn private grounds
and to shade village streets.
=The Hackberry=
_Celtis occidentalis_, Linn.
The hackberry reaches one hundred and twenty-five feet in height in
moist soil along stream borders or in marshes. It is distributed from
Nova Scotia to Puget Sound, and south to Florida, Tennessee, Missouri,
Texas, and New Mexico. The beauty of its graceful crown is sometimes
marred by a fungus which produces a thick tufting of twigs on the ends
of branches. The name, "witches' brooms" has been given to these
tufts. Growths of similar appearance and the same name are produced by
insect injury on some other trees.
The fruit of the hackberry is an oblong, thin-fleshed sweet berry,
purple in color, one fourth to one half inch long. It dries about the
solitary seed and hangs on the tree all winter, to the great
satisfaction of the birds. (_See illustration, page 183._)
Emerson says: "The wood is used for the shafts and axle-trees of
carriages, the naves of wheels, and for musical instruments. The root
is used for dyeing yellow, the bark for tanning, and an oil is
expressed from the stones of the fruit."
The best use we can make of the hackberry tree is to plant it for
shade and ornament. It is easily transplanted, for the roots are
shallow and fibrous, so that well-grown trees may be moved in winter
time. The autumn yellow of the foliage is wonderfully cheerful, and
the warty bark, checked into small thick plates, is interesting at any
season.
=European Nettle Tree=
_C. Australis_
The European nettle tree is supposed to have been the famous "lotus"
of classical literature. Homer tells of the lotus-eaters who, when
they tasted the sweet fruit, straightway forgot their native land or
could not be persuaded to return. This innocent tree, against which
the charge has never been proved, bears a better reputation for the
qualities of its wood. It is as hard as box or holly, and as beautiful
as satin-wood when polished. Figures of saints and other images are
carved out of it. Hay-forks are made of its supple limbs. Rocky
worthless land is set apart by law in some countries for the growing
of these trees. Suckers from the roots make admirable ramrods,
coach-whip stocks and walking-sticks. Shafts and axle-trees of
carriages are made of the larger shoots; oars and hoops are supplied
from these coppiced trees. From northern Africa, throughout Europe,
and on to India, the tree is planted for shade, and its foliage is
used as fodder for cattle.
THE MULBERRIES
The mulberry family includes fifty-five genera and nearly a thousand
species of temperate-zone and tropical plants. The genus _ficus_ alone
includes six hundred species. Hemp, important for its fibrous, inner
bark, and the hop vine are well known herbaceous members of the
mulberry family, which stands botanically between the elms and the
nettles--strange company, it would seem, but justified by fundamental
characteristics. Three genera of this family have tree forms in
America--the mulberry, the Osage orange, and the fig. Two native
mulberries and three exotic species are widely cultivated for their
fruit, their wood, and as ornamental trees. Weeping mulberries are
among the most popular horticultural forms.
=The Red Mulberry=
_Morus rubra_, Linn.
The red mulberry grows to be a large dense, round-headed tree, with
thick fibrous roots and milky sap. Its alternate leaves, three to five
inches long, are variable in form, often irregularly lobed, very
veiny, usually rough, blue-green above, pale and pubescent beneath,
turning yellow in early autumn. The inconspicuous flower spikes are
succeeded by fleshy aggregate fruits like a blackberry, sweet, juicy,
dark purple or red, each individual fruit single-seeded. Birds and
boys alike throng the trees through the long period during which these
berries ripen. They are hardly worthy to rank with the cultivated
mulberries as a fruit tree. But planted in poultry yards and hog
pastures the dropping fruits are eagerly devoured by the occupants of
these enclosures.
The chief value of the tree lies in the durability of its
orange-yellow wood, which, though coarse-grained, soft and weak, is
very durable in the soil and in contact with water. Hence it has
always commended itself to fence- and boat-builder. It is sometimes
planted for ornament, but its dropping fruit is a strong objection to
it as a street or lawn tree.
One of the mulberry's chief characteristics is its tenacity to life.
Its seeds readily germinate and cuttings, whether from roots or twigs,
strike root quickly. Indians discovered that rope could be made out of
the bast fibre of mulberry bark. They even wove a coarse cloth out of
the same material. The early settlers of Virginia, who found the red
mulberry growing there in great abundance, dreamed in vain of silk
culture as an industry based upon this native tree. Their hopes were
not realized. Silk culture has never yet become a New-World industry.
=The White Mulberry=
_M. alba_, Linn.
The white mulberry is a native of northern China and Japan. From this
region it has been extensively introduced into all warm temperate
climates. Its white berries are of negligible character. It is the
leaves that give this oriental mulberry a unique position in the
economic world. They are the chosen food of silkworms. No substitute
has ever robbed this tree of its preA"minence, maintained for many
centuries in its one field of usefulness.
The hardy Russian mulberries are derived from _M. alba_. These have
done much to enrich the horticulture of our Northern states, but the
parent tree, though it thrives in the eastern United States and in the
South, has not been the means of establishing silk culture on a paying
basis in this country.
=The Black Mulberry=
_M. nigra_, Linn.
The black mulberry, probably a native of Persia, has large, dark red,
juicy fruits, for which it is extensively cultivated in Europe. In
this country it is hardy only in the Southern and the Pacific Coast
states. It is the best fruit tree of its family, yet no mulberry is
able to take rank among profitable fruit trees. The fruits are too
sweet and soft, and they lack piquancy of flavor. They ripen a few at
a time and are gathered by shaking the trees.
The dark green foliage of the black mulberry gives ample shade
throughout the season. Planted in the garden or in the border of the
lawn where no walk will be defaced by the dropping fruits, the
mulberry is a particularly desirable tree because it attracts some of
our most desirable song-birds to build on the premises. Given a
mulberry tree and a bird-bath near by, and the smallest city lot
becomes a bird sanctuary through the summer and a wayside inn for
transients during the two migratory seasons.
THE FIGS
The genus _ficus_ belongs to all tropical countries, and this
remarkable range accounts for the six hundred different species
botanists have identified. The rubber plant, popular in this country
as a pot and tub plant, is one of the best-known species. In its East
Indian forest home it is the "Assam Rubber Tree." It may begin life as
an air plant, fixing its roots in the crotch of another tree, in which
a chance seed has lodged. A shock of aA"rial roots strikes downward and
reaches the ground. After this the tree depends upon food drawn from
the earth. The supporting host tree is no longer needed. The young
rubber tree has by this time a trunk stiff enough to stand alone.
Assam rubber, which ranks in the market with the best Brazilian crude
rubber, comes from the sap of this wild fig tree, _Ficus elasticus_.
Clip off a twig of your leathery-leaved rubber plant and note the
sticky white sap that exudes. In the highest priced automobile tires
you find the manufactured product.
Dried figs have always been an important commercial fruit. These
imported figs are from trees that are horticultural varieties of a
wild Asiatic species, _Ficus Carica_. Smyrna figs are best for drying.
They form a delicious, wholesome sweet, which has high food value and
is more wholesome than candy for children. Tons of this dried fruit
are imported each year from the countries east of the Mediterranean
Sea. Now California is growing Smyrna figs successfully.
The banyan tree of India is famous, striking its aA"rial rootlets
downward until they reach the ground and take root, and thus help
support the giant, horizontal limbs. These amazing trees, members of
the genus _ficus_, sometimes extend to cover an acre or more of
ground. To walk under one is like entering the darkness of a forest of
young trees. By the clearing away of most of these aA"rial branches, a
great arbor is made for the comfort of people in regions where the
sun's rays are overpowering in the middle of the day.
Our own fig trees in North America are but sprawling parasitic trees,
unable to stand alone. They are found only in the south of Florida,
and therefore are generally unknown.
[Illustration: _See page 153_
FLOWERS AND FRUIT OF THE WILD BLACK CHERRY]
[Illustration: _See page 156_
A FRUITING BRANCH OF THE COCKSPUR THORN]
=The Golden Fig=
_Ficus aurea_, Nutt.
The golden fig climbs up other trees and strangles its host with its
coiling stems and aA"rial roots. One far-famed specimen has grown and
spread like a banyan tree, its trunk and head supported by secondary
stems that have struck downward from the branches. Smooth as a beech
in bark, crowned with glossy, beautiful foliage, like the rubber
plants, this parasitic fig is a splendid tropical tree, but the host
that supports all this luxuriance is sacrificed utterly. The little
yellow figs that snuggle in the axils of the leaves turn purple,
sweet, and juicy as they ripen. They are sometimes used in making
preserves. An interesting characteristic of the wood of the golden fig
is its wonderful lightness. Bulk for bulk, it is only one fourth as
heavy as water.
THE PAPAWS
Two of the forty-eight genera of the tropical custard-apple family are
represented by a solitary species each in the warmer parts of the
United States. Important fruit and ornamental trees in the tropics of
the Old World are included in this family, but their New-World
representatives are not the most valuable. However, they have a
sufficient number of family traits to look foreign and interesting
among our more commonplace forest trees; and because their
distribution is limited they are not generally recognized in gardens,
where they are planted more for curiosity than for ornament.
=The Papaw=
_Asimina triloba_, Dunal.
The papaw has the family name, custard-apple, from its unusual fruit,
whose flesh is soft and yellow, like custard. The shape suggests that
of a banana. The fruits hang in clusters and their pulp is enclosed in
thick dark brown skin, wrinkled, sometimes shapeless, three to five
inches long. Dead ripe, the flesh becomes almost transparent,
fragrant, sweet, rather insipid, surrounding flat, wrinkled seeds an
inch long. The fruit is gathered and sold in local markets from
forests of these papaws which grow under taller trees in the alluvial
bottom lands of the Mississippi Valley. In summer the leaves are
tropical-looking, having single blades eight to twelve inches long,
four to five inches broad, on short, thick stalks. These leaves are
set alternately upon the twig, and cluster in whorls on the ends of
branches. The flowers appear with the leaves and would escape notice
but for their abundance and the unusual color of their three large
membranous petals. At first these axillary blossoms are as green as
the leaves; gradually the dark pigment overcomes the green, and the
color passes through shades of brownish green to dark rich wine-red.
The full-grown foliage by midsummer has become very thin in texture,
and lined with pale bloom. The tree throughout exhales a sickish,
disagreeable odor. The fruit is improved in flavor by hanging until it
gets a nip of frost.
This "wild banana tree" is the favorite fruit tree of the negroes in
the Black Belt. Its hardiness is surprising. From the Southern states,
it ranges north into Kansas, Michigan, New York, and New Jersey.
=The Melon Papaw=
_Carica Papaya_, Linn.
The melon papaw does not belong to the custard-apple family, but it
grows in southern Florida and throughout the West Indies, and has the
name of our little "wild banana tree," so it may as well have mention
here, as it is the sole representative of the true Papaw family, and
it is universally cultivated for its fruit in the warm regions of the
world. By selection the fruit has been improved until it ranks as one
of the most wholesome and important of all the fruits in the tropics.
In Florida the papaw grows on the rich hummocks along the Indian
River, and on the West Coast southward from Bay Biscayne. It is very
common on all the West Indian Islands. It grows like a palm, with tall
stem crowned by huge simple leaves, one to two feet across, deeply
lobed into three main divisions, and each lobe irregularly cut by
narrow sinuses. The veins are very thick and yellow, and the hollow
leaf-stalks lengthen to three or four feet. The bark of this tree is
silvery white--a striking contrast with the lustrous head of foliage.
The flowers are waxy, tubular, fragrant, turning their yellow petals
backward in a whorl. On fertile trees the fruits mature into great
melons, sometimes as large as a man's head; but these are the
cultivated varieties. Wild papaws rarely exceed four inches long, and
usually they are smaller. When full grown the fruit turns to bright
orange-yellow. The succulent pulp separates easily from the round
seeds.
In the West Indies, the trees often branch and attain much greater
size than in Florida, where fifteen feet is the maximum, in the wilds.
The leaves of this papaw contain, in their abundant sap, a solvent,
_papain_, which has the property of destroying the connective tissue
in meats. They are bruised by the natives and tough meat, wrapped
closely in them, becomes tender in a few hours. The fruits are eaten
raw and made into preserves. Negroes use the leaves also as a
substitute for soap in the washing of clothes.
THE POND APPLES
The pond apple (_Anona glabra_, Linn.) is our only representative of
its genus that reaches tree form and size, and it is the second of our
native custard-apples. It comes to us _via_ the West Indies, and
reaches no farther north than the swamps of southern Florida. It is a
familiar tree on the Bahama Islands. Thirty to forty feet high, the
broad head rises from a short trunk, less than two feet in diameter,
but very thick compared with the wide-spreading, contorted branches
and slender branchlets. It is often buttressed at the base. The leaves
are oval and pointed, rarely more than four inches long, bright green,
leathery, paler on the lower surface, plain-margined. The flowers in
April form pointed, triangular boxes by the touching of the tips of
the yellowish white petals, whose inner surfaces near the base have a
bright red spot.
The fruit, which ripens in November, is somewhat heart-shaped, four to
six inches long, compound like a mulberry. The smooth custard-like
flesh forms a luscious mass between the fibrous core and the surface,
studded with the hard seeds. Fragrant and sweet, these wild pond
apples have small merit as fruit. Little effort has been made to
improve the species horticulturally. Its rival species in the West
Indies have a tremendous lead which they are likely to keep.
=The Cherimoya=
_Anona Cherimolia_, Mill.
The cherimoya, native of the highlands of Central America, has long
been cultivated, and its fruit has been classed, with the pineapple
and the mangosteen, as one of the three finest fruits in the world.
Certainly it deserves high rank among the fruits of the tropics. This
also has been introduced into cultivation in southern Florida, but its
culture has assumed much more importance in California, where it seems
to feel quite at home.
The tree is a handsome one, with broad velvety bright green leaves,
deciduous during the winter months. It grows wherever the orange is
hardy, and its fruit, heart-shaped or oval, green or brown, is about
the size of a navel orange. Conical protuberances cover the surface
and enclose a mass of white, custard-like pulp, with the flavor of the
pineapple, in which are imbedded twenty or thirty brown seeds. A
taste for this tropical pond apple is as easily acquired as for the
pineapple, which has become universally popular. Every garden in the
Orange Belt should have a cherimoya tree for ornament and for its
fruit.
THE PERSIMMONS
The persimmon tree of the Southern woods belongs to the ebony family,
which contains some important fruit and lumber trees, chiefly confined
to the genus _diospyros_, which has two representatives among the
trees of North America. Doubtless a climate of longer summers would
enable our persimmon trees to produce wood as hard as the ebony of
commerce, whose black heart-wood and thick belt of soft yellow
sap-wood are the products of five different tropical species of the
genus--two from India, one from Africa, one from Malaysia and one from
Mauritius. The beautiful, variegated wood called _coromandel_ is
produced by a species of ebony that grows in Ceylon.
Fossil remains of persimmon trees are found in the miocene rocks of
Greenland and Alaska, and in the later cretaceous beds uncovered in
Nebraska. These prove that _diospyros_ once had a much wider range
than now, extending through temperate to arctic regions, whereas now
our two persimmons and the Chinese and Japanese species, are the only
representatives outside the tropics.
=The Persimmon=
_Diospyros Virginiana_, Linn.
The persimmon will never be forgotten by the Northerner who chances to
visit his Virginia cousins in the early autumn. Strolling through the
woods he notes among other unfamiliar trees a tall shaft covered with
black bark, deeply checked into squarish plates. The handsome round
head, held well aloft, bears a shock of angular twigs and among the
glossy, orange-red leaves hang fruits the size and shape of his
Northern crabapples. The rich orange-red makes it extremely
attractive, and the enthusiasm with which the entire population
regards the approaching persimmon harvest focuses his interest
likewise upon this unknown Southern fruit. He is eager to taste it
without delay, and usually there is no one to object. Forthwith he
climbs the tree, or beats a branch with a long pole until a good
specimen is obtained. Its thin skin covers the mellow flesh--but the
first bite is not followed by a second. The fruit is so puckery that
it almost strangles one.
But after the frosts and well on into the winter the persimmons grow
more sweet, juicy, and delicious, and lose all their bitterness and
astringency. To find a few of these sugary morsels in the depths of
the woods at the end of a long day's hunting is a reward that offsets
all disappointments of an empty bag. No fruit could be more utterly
satisfying to a dry-mouthed, leg-weary, hungry boy.
The opossum is the chief competitor of the local negro in harvesting
the persimmon crop. Individual trees differ in the excellence of their
fruit. These special trees are "spotted" months before the crop is fit
to eat. It would seem as if the opossums camp under the best persimmon
trees and take an unfair advantage, because they are nocturnal beasts
and have nothing to do but watch and wait. One thing solaces the
negro, when he sees the harvest diminish through the unusual industry
and appetite of his bright-eyed, rat-tailed rival. He knows what
brush-pile or hollow tree shelters the opossum, while he sleeps by
day. Every persimmon the opossum steals helps to make him fat and
tender for the darkey's Thanksgiving feast, so it is only a question
of patience and strategy to recoup his losses by feasting on his fat
'possum neighbor, and to boast to the friends who join him at the
feast, of the contest of wits at which he came off victorious.
In summer time a persimmon tree is handsome in its oval pointed
leaves, often six inches long, with pale linings. The flowers that
appear in axillary clusters on the sterile trees are small, yellowish
green and inconspicuous. On the fertile trees the flowers are solitary
and axillary. The fruit is technically a berry, containing one to
eight seeds.
The following first impressions of persimmons in Virginia woods are
from the pen of a traveler in the early part of the seventeenth
century, whom Pocahontas might have introduced to a fruit well known
to the Indians:
* * * * *
"They have a plumb which they call pessemmins, like to a medler, in
England, but of a deeper tawnie cullour; they grow on a most high
tree. When they are not fully ripe, they are harsh and choakie, and
furre in a man's mouth like allam, howbeit, being taken fully ripe, yt
is a reasonable pleasant fruiet, somewhat lushious. I have seen our
people put them into their baked and sodden puddings; there be whose
tast allows them to be as pretious as the English apricock; I confess
it is a good kind of horse plumb."
* * * * *
"'Simmon beer" and brandy are made from the fruit, and its seeds are
roasted to use when coffee is scarce. The inner bark of the tree has
tonic properties, and the country folk use it for the allaying of
intermittent fevers. The wood is used in turnery, for shoe lasts,
plane stocks and shuttles. It is a peculiarity of the persimmon tree
that almost one hundred layers of pale sap-wood, the growth of as many
years, lie outside of the black heart-wood, upon which the reputation
of ebony rests.
The Japanese Persimmon
Kaki
The native persimmon of Japan has been developed into an important
horticultural fruit. China also has species that are fruit trees of
merit. In the fruit stalls of all American cities, the Japanese
persimmon is found in its season, the smooth, orange-red skin, easily
mistaken for that of a tomato as the fruits lie in their boxes. The
pointed cones differ in form, however, and the soft mellow flesh, with
its melon-like seeds and leathery calyx at base, mark this fruit as
still a novelty in the East.
In southern California no garden is complete without a Japanese
persimmon tree to give beauty by its cheerful, leathery, green leaves
and its rich-colored fruits. But the beginner will establish a grave
personal prejudice against this fruit unless he wait until it is dead
ripe, for it has the astringent qualities of its genus. No fruit is
more delicate in flavor than a thoroughly ripe kaki, so soft that it
must be eaten with a spoon.
The Department of Agriculture at Washington has established a number
of varieties of these oriental fruit trees in the warmer parts of the
United States. Our native persimmons are being used as stock upon
which to graft the exotics. A distinct addition to the fruits of this
country has thus been made and the public is fast learning to enjoy
the luscious, wholesome Japanese persimmons.