cucumber when seen at a distance, but it is far from being one. Its
intense bitter makes it safe from the attacks of birds and beasts. So
far as known, it is not eaten, tasted, or touched by any living
creature--except man. Some of the pioneer settlers, in the days when
there was precious little to eat on the frontiers, discovered a way of
extracting the bitter from the wild cucumber, and making some sort of a
pickle of the remainder; but the art seems to have been lost with the
passing of the pioneers of the Daniel Boone type, and the wild cucumber
now hangs untouched, and tempts nobody. It is three inches or less in
length, generally slightly curved, and is green in color until fully
ripe. Even the flowers which produce the fruit are green, with the
merest suggestion of yellow. They are so inconspicuous that few persons
ever notice them, even though cucumber trees stand in door yards. The
ripe cucumbers are dark red or scarlet, or rather the seeds are, which
grow on the surface like grains of corn on a cob, though fewer in number
and farther apart. Something seems to be lacking in the machinery by
which the flowers are fertilized, with the result that often nearly half
the seeds which ought to cover the surface of the cucumber, fail to
materialize. There are many blank spaces representing flowers which the
pollen missed.
There is likewise something missing in the modus operandi of scattering
the seeds. They have no wings, and the wind is powerless to carry them.
They are as bitter as quinine and no bird, squirrel, or mouse will
plant, carry, or touch them. Nature appears to have forgotten to provide
any other means for dispersing the seeds of this remarkable tree. When
seeds are fully ripe, they drop away from the parent fruit--the
cucumber--but the fall of each seed is arrested by a small thread which
suspends it from one to three inches below the fruit. There the seeds
hang, swinging and dangling in the wind. What part the threads play in
the economy of nature is not apparent, unless their purpose is to expose
the seeds to a chance of becoming entangled with the wings, feet, or
feathers of flying birds, whereby they may be carried away and dropped
in suitable places for growing. There can be no doubt that this happens
occasionally, and constitutes one of the methods of seed dispersal.
Others are transported by flowing water.
The chances seem to be greatly against the survival of the cucumber tree
in competition with maples, birches, pines, and cottonwoods, whose
winged seeds are wind-borne; or with oaks, hickories, and walnuts whose
heavy, wingless nuts are planted hither and thither by accommodating
squirrels which are intent only on providing for their own winter wants,
but in reality are industrious and effective forest planters.
Notwithstanding the disadvantages under which the cucumber tree is
placed, it has managed to hold its ground in the forest during immense
periods of time, and it seems to be as firmly established now as ever.
The leaves of this tree are from seven to ten inches long, and four to
six wide. In autumn before they fall they turn a blotched yellow-brown
color. The first severe frost brings them all down in a heap. At sunset
the tree may be laden with leaves, and by the next noon all will be on
the ground. They are so heavy that the wind does not move them far, and
they drop in heaps beneath the branches. In color they resemble owl
feathers, and the suggestion that comes to one’s mind, who happens to
pass under a cucumber tree the morning following the first frost, is
that during the night some prowler picked a roost of owls and scattered
the feathers on the ground.
The range of cucumber extends from western New York to Alabama,
following the Appalachian mountains; and westward to Illinois and
Mississippi, appearing west of the Mississippi river in Arkansas. It
occurs on low rocky slopes, the banks of mountain streams, and on rich
bottom land. It is of largest size and is most abundant in the narrow
valleys in eastern Tennessee and the western parts of the Carolinas. The
tree is from two to four feet in diameter, and sixty to ninety feet
high. The trunk is of good form for sawlogs. Among its local names are
pointed-leaf magnolia, black lin, magnolia, and mountain magnolia.
The wood of cucumber resembles that of yellow poplar in appearance and
in physical properties, except that it is ten per cent heavier than
poplar. It usually passes for that wood at sawmill and factory. The
Federal census credits it with less than a million feet a year as
lumber. That is much too small. It is valuable and finds ready sale.
Manufacturers of wooden pumps regard it as the best material for the
bored logs. It is worked into interior finish for houses, flooring for
cars, interior parts of furniture, woodenware, boxes and crates, slack
cooperage, including veneer barrels.
The tree is planted for ornament in the northern states and Europe. The
chief value lies in its large, green leaves and symmetrical crown. The
red fruit adds to the tree’s attractiveness late in summer.
LARGELEAF UMBRELLA (_Magnolia macrophylla_) is valuable chiefly as a
sort of ornamental curiosity, on account of its enormous leaves and
flowers. The leaf is from twenty to thirty inches long and ten to
twelve wide. It drops in autumn before its green color has undergone
much change. The leaves lack toughness, and the wind whips them into
strings long before the summer is ended. Thus what otherwise would
be highly ornamental becomes somewhat unsightly. When well protected
from wind by surrounding objects, the leaves fare better and last
longer. The white, fragrant flowers are likewise remarkable on
account of size. They are cup-shaped and some of them are almost a
foot across. They pay a penalty no less severe than the leaves pay,
on account of large size, and are liable to be thumped and bruised
by swinging leaves and branches.
The largeleaf umbrella is a tree of the southern Appalachian
mountains although its range extends southwest to Louisiana, and
northward from there to Arkansas. It is at its best in deep rich
soil of sheltered valleys, occurring in isolated groups, but never
in pure forests. It is known as large-leaved cucumber tree,
great-leaved magnolia, large-leaved umbrella tree, and long-leaved
magnolia. The fruit is nearly a sphere, from two to three inches in
diameter, and bright rose color when fully ripe. The seeds are
two-thirds of an inch long. The smooth, light gray bark is usually
less than a quarter of an inch thick. Large trees are forty or fifty
feet high and twenty inches in diameter. It is not considered
valuable for lumber, because of scarcity and small size. The wood is
considerably heavier than yellow poplar, and is hard but not strong;
light brown in color with thick, light yellow sapwood. Reports do
not show that the wood is put to any use. Planted trees are hardy as
far north as Massachusetts, and success has attended the tree’s
introduction in the parks and gardens of southern Europe.
YELLOW FLOWERED CUCUMBER TREE (_Magnolia acuminata cordata_) is
usually considered a variety of the common cucumber tree, rather
than a separate species. The most noticeable feature is the yellow
blossom which gives the names by which it is generally known, among
such being yellow-flowered magnolia, and yellow cucumber tree. It is
not a garden variety, for it grows wild; but it has been cultivated
during more than a century, and has undergone changes which are not
matched by wild trees. The finest forms of the forest variety are
found on the Blue Ridge in South Carolina, and in central Alabama.
The cultivated tree is distinguished by its darker green leaves, and
by its smaller, bright, canary-yellow flowers. The variety has no
value as a timber tree, but is widely appreciated as an ornament.
Cultivated trees generally remain small in size, and do not develop
the long, clean trunks common with the cucumber tree under forest
conditions.
UMBRELLA TREE (_Magnolia tripetala_) is one of the magnolias and
should not be confounded with the Asiatic umbrella tree often
planted in yards. The flower is surrounded by a whorl of leaves
resembling an umbrella, hence the name. It is also known as
cucumber, magnolia, and elkwood. The range of the tree extends from
Pennsylvania to Alabama and west to Arkansas. It prefers the margins
of swamps and the rich soil along mountain streams. Leaves are
eighteen inches long and half as wide. They fall in autumn. Flowers
are cup-shaped and creamy-white. The fruit somewhat resembles that
of the common cucumber tree, but is rose colored when fully ripe.
Trees are thirty or forty feet high and a foot or more in diameter.
The brown heartwood is light, soft, and weak, and is used little or
not at all for commercial purposes. The tree is cultivated for
ornament in the northern states and in Europe.
[Illustration]
YELLOW POPLAR
[Illustration: YELLOW POPLAR]
YELLOW POPLAR
(_Liriodendron Tulipifera_)
In diameter of trunk the yellow poplar is, next to sycamore, the largest
hardwood tree of the United States, and if both height and trunk
diameter are considered, it surpasses the sycamore in size. It belongs
to a very old group of hardwoods which have come down from remote
geological ages, and the species is now found only in the United States
and China. Mature trees are from three to eight feet in diameter and
from 90 to 180 in height.
It has many names in different parts of its range, but it is never
mistaken for any other tree. The peculiar notched leaf is a sure means
of identification. The resemblance of the flower to the tulip has given
it the name tulip tree in some localities, and botanists prefer that
name. It is so called in Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
West Virginia, District of Columbia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario. Wood
users in New England and in some of the other northern states prefer the
name whitewood and it is so known, in part at least, in New England, New
York, New Jersey, Delaware, South Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan,
and Illinois. Yellow poplar is the name preferred by lumbermen in nearly
all regions where the tree is found in commercial quantities, notably in
New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia,
North and South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Missouri, and Tennessee. The name is often shortened to
poplar, which is used in Rhode Island, Delaware, North and South
Carolina, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana. The name
tulip poplar is less frequently heard, and blue poplar and hickory
poplar are terms used in West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina,
but generally under the impression that they refer to a different form
or species. In Rhode Island it is called popple, in New York cucumber
tree, and canoe wood in Tennessee and in the upper Ohio valley.
The botanical range of yellow poplar is wider than its commercial range;
that is, a few trees are found in regions surrounding the borders of the
district where the tree is profitably lumbered. The boundaries of its
range run from southwestern Vermont, westward to Lake Michigan near
Grand Haven, southward to northern Florida, and west of the Mississippi
river in Missouri and Arkansas. The productive yellow poplar timber belt
has never been that large but has clung pretty closely to the southern
Appalachian mountain ranges and to certain districts lying both east and
west of them. The best original stands were in Pennsylvania, Maryland,
Virginia, West Virginia, western North Carolina, eastern Kentucky and
Tennessee, and in some parts of Ohio and Indiana. However, considerable
quantities of good yellow poplar have been cut in other regions.
The physical properties of the wood of yellow poplar fit it for many
purposes but not for all. It is not very strong and is tolerably
brittle. It is light in weight, medium soft, and is easily worked. The
annual rings of growth are not prominent compared with some of the oaks,
yet select logs show nicely in quarter-sawing. The medullary rays are
numerous, but small and not prominent, for which reason bright streaks
and flecks are not characteristic of the wood. Yellow poplar is fairly
stiff and elastic, but is not often selected on account of those
qualities. In color it is light yellow or brown. The color gives name to
the tree. The sapwood is whiter, and it is the abnormally thick sapwood
of some trees which causes them to be called white poplar. The wood has
little figure, and it is seldom employed for fine work without stain or
paint of some kind. It is not usually classed as long lasting when
exposed to the weather, yet cases are known where weather boarding of
houses, and bridge and mill timbers of yellow poplar have outlasted the
generation of builders.
The quantity of yellow poplar in the country is but a remnant of the
former enormous supply that covered the rich valleys and fertile coves
in a region exceeding 200,000 square miles. It occupied the best land,
and much was destroyed by farmers in clearing fields. It was not
generally found in groves or dense stands, but as solitary trees
scattered through forests of other woods. The trunks are tall and
shapely, the crowns comparatively small. The form is ideal for sawlogs,
and very few trees of America produce a higher percentage of clear,
first class lumber. That is because the forest-grown poplar early sheds
its lower branches, and the trunks lay on nothing but clear wood. In the
yellow poplar’s region it was the principal wood of which the pioneers
made their canoes for crossing and navigating rivers. It is still best
known by the name canoewood in some regions. It worked easily and was
light, and a thin-shelled canoe lasted many years, barring floods and
other accidents. Builders of pirogues, keelboats, barges, and other
vessels for inland navigation in early times when roads were few and
streams were the principal highways of commerce, found no timber
superior to yellow poplar. It could be had in planks of great size and
free from defects, and while not as strong as oak, it was strong enough
to withstand the usual knocks and buffetings of river traffic.
Yellow poplar sawlogs have probably exceeded in number any other wood,
except white pine, floated down rivers and creeks to market. The wood
floats well and lumbermen have usually pushed far up the rivers, ahead
of other lumber operations, to procure it. Enormous drives have gone and
are still going out of rivers in the Appalachian region.
The uses of yellow poplar are so many that an enumeration is
impracticable, except by general classes. These are boxes and
woodenware, vehicles, furniture, interior finish, and car building.
There is another class consisting of low-grade work, such as common
lumber, pulpwood, and the like.
There is a class of commodities which are usually packed in boxes and
require a wood that will impart neither taste nor stain. That
requirement is met by yellow poplar. It has been an important wood for
boxes in which food products are shipped. It is so used less frequently
now than formerly because of increased cost, but veneer is employed to a
large extent, and while the total quantity of wood going into box
factories is smaller than formerly, the actual number and contents of
poplar boxes are perhaps about the same. It is a white wood and shows
printing and stenciling clearly. That is an important point with many
manufacturers who wish to print their advertisements on the boxes which
they send out. Woodenware, particularly ironing boards, bread boards,
and pantry and kitchen utensils, are largely made of poplar because it
is light, attractive, and easily kept clean. It is popular as pumplogs
for the same reason.
As a vehicle wood, yellow poplar is not a competitor of oak and hickory.
They are for running gear and frames; poplar for tops and bodies. No
wood excels it for wide panels. It receives finish and paint so well
that it is not surpassed by the smoothest metals. Many of the finest
carriage and automobile tops are largely of this wood. In case of slight
accidents it resists dints much better than sheet metal.
Cheap furniture was once made of yellow poplar. It now enters into the
best kinds, and is finished in imitation of costly woods, notably
mahogany, birch, and cherry. No American wood will take a higher polish.
It is also much employed as an interior wood by furniture manufacturers.
It fills an important place as cores or backing over which veneers are
glued.
When used as an interior house finish and in car building, it is nearly
always stained or painted. Many of the broad handsome panels in
passenger cars, which pass for cherry, birch, mahogany, or rosewood, are
yellow poplar, to which the finisher and decorator have given their best
touches.
All poplar lumber is not wide, clear stock, though much of it is. The
lower grades go as common lumber and small trees are cut for pulpwood. A
large part of the demand for high-grade yellow poplar is in foreign
countries, and a regular oversea trade is carried on by exporters.
Foreign manufacturers put the wood to practically the same uses as the
best grades in this country.
Yellow poplar seasons well, and is a satisfactory wood to handle. When
thoroughly dry it holds its shape with the best of woods. Bluing is apt
to affect the green wood if unduly exposed. Fresh poplar chips in damp
situations sometimes change to a conspicuous blue color within a day or
two. However, millmen do not experience much difficulty in preventing
the bluing of the lumber.
GYMINDA (_Gyminda grisebachii_) is also called false boxwood, and
belongs to the staff family. The name gyminda is artificial and
meaningless. The genus has a single species which occurs in the islands
of southern Florida where trees of largest size are scarcely twenty-five
feet high and six inches in diameter. The wood is very heavy, hard,
fine-grained, and is nearly black. It is suitable for small articles,
but it is not known to be so used, and its scarcity renders improbable
any important future use of the wood. The fruit is a small berry,
ripening in November. The range of the species extends to Cuba, Porto
Rico, and other islands of the West Indies.
[Illustration]
EVERGREEN MAGNOLIA
[Illustration: EVERGREEN MAGNOLIA]
EVERGREEN MAGNOLIA
(_Magnolia Fœtida_)
This is not a timber tree of first importance. A few years ago it was
seldom cut except in very small quantities; but it was found to possess
good qualities, and now it goes regularly to the mills which saw
hardwoods in the region where it grows. The wood of different magnolia
trees, or even the wood of the same tree, shows lack of uniformity. Some
of it looks like yellow poplar and compares favorably with it in several
particulars, while other of it is very dark, with hard flinty streaks
which not only present a poor appearance, but dull the tools of the
woodworking machines and create an unfavorable impression of the wood
generally. This magnolia holds pretty closely to the damp lands in all
parts of its range. The amount of the annual cut is not known, because
it goes in with the minor species in most places and no separate account
is taken. It is coming into more notice every year, and some
manufacturers have been so successful in finding ways to make it
serviceable that the best grades are easily sold. The wood does not hold
its color very well. The light-colored sapwood is apt to become darker
after exposure to the air, and the dark heartwood fades a little. The
tree is so handsome in the forest that it is occasionally spared when
the surrounding trees are removed.
It is doubtful if any American tree surpasses it as an ornament when its
leaves, trunk, flowers, and bark are considered. It is not perfect in
all of these particulars; in fact, it possesses some serious faults. The
crown is often too small for the tree’s height; the branches straggle,
many on some parts of the trunk and few on others; the flowers are
objectionable because of strong odor which is unpleasant to most people.
But these shortcomings are more than compensated for by splendid
qualities. The rich, dark green of the leaves, their size and profusion,
their changeless luster, place them in a position almost beyond the
reach of rivalry from any other tree.
Those who see this splendid inhabitant of the forest only where it has
been planted in northern states, and elsewhere outside of its natural
range, miss much of the best it has to give. It belongs in the South.
The wet lands, the small elevations in deep swamps, the flat country
where forests are dense, are its home. The yellowish-green trunk rises
through the tangled foliage that keeps near the ground, and towers fifty
feet above, and there spreads in a crown of green so deep that it is
almost black. It likes company, and seldom grows solitary. Its
associates are the southern maples, red gum, tupelo, cypress, a dozen
species of oak, and occasionally pines on nearby higher ground.
Festoons of grayish-green Spanish moss often add to the tropical
character of the scene. The moss seldom hangs on the magnolia, but is
frequently abundant on surrounding trees.
Lumbermen formerly left the evergreen magnolia trees on tracts from
which they cut nearly everything else. Large areas which had once been
regarded as swamps were thus converted into parks of giant magnolias,
many of which towered seventy or eighty feet. The tracts were left wild,
and those who so left them had no purpose of providing ornament, but
they did so. Many a scene was made grand by its magnolias, after other
forest growth had been cut away.
The range of evergreen magnolia is from North Carolina to Florida and
west to Arkansas and Texas. The species reaches largest size in the
vicinity of the Mississippi, both east and west of it. Trees eighty feet
high and four feet in diameter occur, and trunks are often without limbs
one-half or two-thirds their length, when they grow in forests.
The common name for the tree in most parts of its range is simply
magnolia, though that name fails to distinguish it from several other
species, some of which are associated with it. Occasionally it is called
big laurel, great laurel magnolia, laurel-leaved magnolia, laurel, and
laurel bay. Bull bay is a common name for it in Georgia, Alabama, and
Mississippi. It is called bat tree, but the reason for such a name is
not known.
Leaves are from five to eight inches long and two or three wide, and
dark green above, but lighter below. They fall in the spring after
remaining on the branches two whole years.
The odor of the flowers is unpleasant, but they are attractive to the
sight, being six or eight inches across, with purple bases. The
flowering habit of this tree is all that could be desired. It is in
bloom from April till August.
The fruit resembles that of the other magnolias and is three or four
inches long and two or less wide. Its color is rusty-brown. The ripe
seeds hang awhile by short threads, according to the habit of the
family. The wood is stronger than poplar, fully as stiff, and nearly
fifty per cent heavier. The annual rings are rather vaguely marked by
narrow bands of summerwood. Pores are diffuse, plentiful, and very
small. Medullary rays are larger than those of yellow poplar, and show
fairly well in quarter-sawed stock. The wood is compact and easily
worked, except when hard streaks are encountered. The surface finishes
with a satiny luster; color creamy-white, yellowish-white, or often
light brown. Occasionally the wood is nearly diametrically the opposite
of this, and is of all darker shades up to purple, black, and blue
black. The appearance of the dark wood suggests decay, but those who
pass it through machines, or work it by hand, consider it as sound as
the lighter colored wood.
The uses of magnolia are much the same in all parts of its range, and
those of Louisiana, where the utilization of the wood has been studied
more closely than in other regions, indicate the scope of its
usefulness. It is there made into parts of boats, bar fixtures, boxes,
broom handles, brush backs, crates, door panels, dugout canoes,
excelsior, furniture shelving, interior finish, ox yokes, panels, and
wagon boxes. In Texas where the annual consumption probably exceeds a
million feet, it is employed by furniture makers, and appears in window
blinds, packing boxes, sash, and molding. In Mississippi, fine mantels
are made of carefully selected wood, quarter-sawed to bring out the
small, square “mirrors” produced by radial cutting of the medullary
rays.