forty feet high, eighteen inches in diameter, and with a flat but
shapely crown. The trunk rises as a shaft with little taper, until the
first branches are reached. All the branches start at the same place,
and the trunk ends abruptly--divides into branches. Flowers are an
important part of the tree, as might be inferred from the prominence
given them in the tree’s names. In the South the flowers appear in
March, in the North in May, and in both regions before the opening of
the leaves. The flowers on vigorous trees are three or four inches
across, white, and very showy. A dogwood tree in full bloom against a
hillside in spring is a most conspicuous object, and is justly admired
by all who have appreciation of beauty. The flowers fall as leaves
appear, and for some months the tree occupies its little space in the
forest unobserved; but in the autumn it bursts again into glory, and
while not quite as conspicuous an object as when in bloom, it is no less
worthy of admiration. The fall of the leaves reveals the brilliant
scarlet fruit which ladens the branches. The berries are just large
enough for a good mouthful for a bird, but birds spare them until fully
ripe to the harvest, and they then harvest them very rapidly. The tree
is thus permitted to display its fruit a considerable time before
yielding it to the feathered inhabitants of the air whose mission in
forest economy is to scatter the seeds of trees, when nature provides
the seeds themselves with no wings for flying.
The two periods in the year when dogwood is highly ornamental, the
flowers in spring before leaves appear, and fruit in autumn after leaves
fall, are responsible for this tree’s importance in ornamental planting.
It is a common park tree, but it is small, generally not more than
fifteen feet high, and it occupies subordinate places in the plans of
the landscape garden. It is a filler between oaks, pines, and spruces,
and it passes unnoticed, except when in bloom and in fruit.
Dogwood is about four pounds per cubic foot heavier than white oak, has
the same breaking strength, and is lower in elasticity. It is quite
commonly believed that this tree has no heartwood, but the belief is
erroneous. It seldom has much, and small trunks often none; but when
dogwood reaches maturity it develops heart. Sometimes the heartwood is
no larger than a lead pencil in trunks forty or fifty years old. The
heart is brown, sapwood is white, and is the part wanted by the users of
dogwood. Annual rings are obscure and it is a tree of slow growth. The
wood is as nearly without figure as any in this country. It seldom or
never goes to sawmills. The logs are too small. Most of the supply is
bought by manufacturers of shuttles and golf stick heads, in this
country and Europe. They purchase it by the cord or piece. It does not
figure much in any part of the lumber business, but is cut and marketed
in ways peculiar to itself. Log cutters in hardwood forests pay little
attention to it. The dogwood harvest comes principally from southern
states. Village merchants are the chief collectors, and they sell to
contractors who ship to buyers in the manufacturing centers. The village
merchants buy from farmers, who cut a stick here and there as they find
it in woodlots, forests, or by the wayside, on their own land or
somebody else’s. When the cutter next drives to town he throws his few
dogwoods in the wagon, and trades them to the store keeper for groceries
or other merchandise. It is small business, but in the aggregate it
brings together enough dogwood to supply the trade.
Dogwood has many uses, but none other approaches shuttle making and
golfhead manufacture in importance. The wood is made into brush blocks,
wedges, engraver’s blocks, tool handles, machinery bearings as a
substitute for lignum-vitæ, small hubs, and many kinds of turnery and
other small articles.
WESTERN DOGWOOD (_Cornus nuttallii_) is a larger, taller tree than the
eastern flowering dogwood. A height of 100 feet is claimed for it in the
low country along the coast of British Columbia, but there are no
authentic reports of trees so large anywhere south of the boundary
between Canada and the United States. Its height ranges from twenty to
fifty feet, and its diameter from six to twenty inches. The appearance
is much the same as its eastern relative. Its berries are red, and grow
in clusters of forty or less; the bark on old trunks is rough, but is
smooth on those of medium size; the flowers are generally described as
very large and showy, but the true flower is quite an inconspicuous
affair, being a small, greenish-yellow, button-like cluster, surrounded
by four or six snowy-white or sometimes pinkish scales which are
popularly but erroneously supposed to form a portion of the real flower.
The western dogwood in its native forest often puts out flowers in
autumn; is well supplied with foliage which assumes red and orange
colors in the fall when the showy berries are at their best. However,
the tree has not yet won its way into the good graces of landscape
gardeners, and has not been much planted in parks. It wants some of the
good points possessed by the flowering dogwood. The western tree shows
to best advantage in its native forest where it thrives on gentle
mountain slopes and in low bottoms, valleys, and gulches, provided the
soil is well drained and rich. It runs southward fifteen hundred miles
from Vancouver island to southern California. It cares little for
sunshine, and often is found growing nicely in dense shade. Seedlings do
better where shade is deep. The wood is lighter but somewhat stronger
than that of the flowering dogwood; is pale reddish-brown, with thick
sapwood; is hard, and checks badly in seasoning. Mature trees are from
100 to 150 years.
BLUE DOGWOOD (_Cornus alternifolia_) is given that name because of the
blue fruit it bears. It has a number of other names, among them being
purple dogwood, green osier, umbrella tree, pigeonberry, and
alternate-leaved dogwood, the last being simply a translation of its
botanical name. It grows in more northern latitudes than the flowering
dogwood, and does not range as far south. It is found from Nova Scotia
to Alabama, and westward to Minnesota, but its southern habitat lies
along the Appalachian mountain ranges. It attains size and assumes form
similar to the flowering dogwood. The wood is heavy, hard, brown, tinged
with red, the sapwood white. It is a deep forest tree, but has been
domesticated in a few instances where it has been planted as ornament.
The wood seems to possess the good qualities of flowering dogwood, but
no reports of uses for it have been made.
Two varieties of flowering dogwood have been produced by cultivation,
weeping dogwood (_Cornus florida pendula_), and red-bract dogwood
(_Cornus florida rubra_). English cornel or dogwood (_Cornus mas_) has
been planted in many parts of this country. The so-called Jamaica
dogwood is not in the dogwood family.
ANDROMEDA (_Andromeda ferruginea_) is a small southern tree of South
Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and in the latter state is sometimes
known as titi, though other trees also bear that name. The largest
are thirty feet high, if by chance one can be found standing erect,
for most of them prefer to sprawl at full length on the ground. The
fruit is a small berry of no value. The wood is weak, but hard and
sufficiently compact to receive fine polish. The heartwood is light
brown, tinged with red.
[Illustration]
CALIFORNIA LAUREL
[Illustration: CALIFORNIA LAUREL]
CALIFORNIA LAUREL
(_Umbellularia Californica_)
This tree’s range lies in southern Oregon and in California. It is a
member of the laurel family and is closely related to the eastern
sassafras and the red and the swamp bays of the southern states; but it
is not near kin to the eastern laurels which, strange as it may appear,
do not belong to the laurel family, notwithstanding the names they bear.
The people of California and Oregon have several names for this
interesting tree. It is known as mountain laurel, California bay tree,
myrtle tree, cajeput, California olive, spice tree, laurel, bay tree,
oreodaphne, and California sassafras.
Those who call it laurel name it on account of its large, lustrous,
thick leaves which adhere to the branches from two to six years. All new
leaves do not come at once, as with most trees, but appear a few at a
time during the whole summer.
The names which connect this tree with sassafras, spice and cajeput are
based on odor and taste. All members of the laurel family in this
country are characterized by pungent, aromatic odor and taste, and the
one under consideration shares these properties in a remarkable degree.
When the leaves and the green bark are crushed, they give off a light,
volatile oil in follicles which float in the air, like those of an
onion, and when inhaled it produces severe pain over the eyes, and may
induce dizziness and violent sneezing. Though the symptoms are alarming
to one who is undergoing the experience for the first time, no serious
inconvenience follows. Dried leaves are capable of producing a similar
effect but with less violence. The California laurel’s close
relationship to the camphor tree is readily believed by persons who
inhale some of the oily spray from the crushed leaves.
Attempts have been made to produce the commercial oil of cajeput, or a
substitute for it, by distilling the leaves and bark of this laurel. A
passable substitute has been manufactured, but it cannot be marketed as
the genuine article. By distilling the fruit a product known as
umbellulic acid has been obtained.
The California laurel carries a very dense crown of leaves. This is due
partly to the old crops which hang so long, and to the tree’s habit of
lengthening its leading shoots during the growing season, and the
constant appearance of young leaves on the lengthening shoots. It can
stand an almost unlimited amount of shade itself, and is by no means
backward in giving abundance of shade to small growth which is trying
to struggle up to light from below. It delights in dense thickets, but
it prefers thickets of its own species.
Its fruiting habits and its disposition to occupy the damp, rich soil
along the banks of small water courses, are responsible for the thick
stands. The fruit itself is an interesting thing. It is yellowish-green
in color, as large as a good-sized olive, and looks much like it. The
fruit ripens in October, and falls in time to get the benefit of the
autumn rains which visit the Pacific coast. Since the trees generally
grow along gulches, the fruit falls and rolls to the bottom. The first
dashing rain sends a flood down the gulches, the laurel drupes are
carried along and are buried in mud wherever they can find a resting
place. Germination takes place soon after. The fruit remains under the
mud, attached to the roots of the young plants, until the following
summer.
The result is that if a laurel gets a foothold in a gulch through which
water occasionally flows, lines of young laurels will eventually cover
the banks of the gulch as far down stream as conditions are favorable.
The wood of California laurel weighs 40.60 pounds per cubic foot when
kiln-dried. That is nine pounds heavier than sassafras. It is very heavy
when green and sinks when placed in water. It is hard and very firm,
rich yellowish brown in color, often beautifully mottled; but this
applies to the heartwood only, and not to the thick sapwood.
Lumbermen have discovered that the wood’s color can be materially
changed by immersing the logs when green, and leaving them submerged a
long time. The beautiful “black myrtle,” which has been so much admired,
is nothing more than California laurel which has undergone the cold
water treatment.
The annual rings of growth are clearly marked by dark bands of
summerwood. The rings are often wide, but not always, for sometimes the
growth is very slow. The wood is diffuse-porous, and the pores are small
and not numerous. The wood’s figure is brought out best by tangential
sawing, as is the case with so many woods which have clearly-marked
rings but small and obscure medullary rays. Figure is not uniform; that
is, one trunk may produce a pattern quite different from another. The
figure of some logs is particularly beautiful; these logs are selected
for special purposes. Sudworth says that none of our hardwoods excels it
in beautiful grain when finished, and Sargent is still more emphatic
when he declares that it is “the most valuable wood produced in the
forests of Pacific North America for interior finish of houses and for
furniture.”
The wood of this tree has more than ninety per cent of the strength of
white oak, is considerably stiffer, and contains a smaller amount of
ash, weight for weight of wood. The species reaches its best development
in the rich valleys of southwestern Oregon, where, with the broadleaf
maple, it forms a considerable part of the forest growth. The largest
trees are from sixty to eighty feet high, and two to four in diameter.
In crowded stands the trunks are shapely, and often measure thirty or
forty feet to the first limbs; but more commonly the trunk is short.
The boat yards in southwestern Oregon were the first to use California
laurel for commercial purposes, but early settlers made a point of
procuring it for fuel when they could. The oil in the wood causes it to
burn with a cheerful blaze, and campers in the mountains consider
themselves fortunate when they find a supply for the evening bonfire.
Shipbuilders have drawn upon this wood for fifty years for material. It
is made into pilot wheels, interior finish, cleats, crossties, and
sometimes deck planking. Furniture makers long ago made a specialty of
the wood for their San Francisco trade. For thirty years travelers
admired the superb furniture of the Palace hotel in that city, and
wondered of what wood it was made. It was the California laurel. The
hotel’s furniture was hand-made, or largely so, at a time when
woodworking factories were few on the Pacific coast. The furniture was
finally destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake. Furniture is still
one of the products made of the wood, but the quantity is small. Other
products are interior finish; fixtures for banks, stores and offices;
musical instruments, including organs; mathematical instruments, and
carpenters’ tools, including rulers, straight-edges, spirit levels,
bench screws and clamps, and handles of many kinds.
Makers of novelties and small turnery find it serviceable for paper
knives, pin trays, match safes, brush backs, and many articles of like
kind. One of the largest uses for it is as walking beams for pumping
oilwells in central and southern California. The beauty of grain has
nothing to do with this use.
Country blacksmiths repair wagons and agricultural implements with this
wood. Farmers have long employed it about their premises for posts,
gates, floors, and building material. Cooks flavor soup with the leaves,
and poultrymen make henroosts of poles, believing that the wood’s odor
will keep insects away. This is probably the old sassafras superstition
carried west by early California settlers.
RED BAY (_Persea borbonia_) is a southern member of the laurel
family, and close akin to sassafras and the California laurel. The
bark is red, hence the name; but it is known also as bay galls,
laurel tree, Florida mahogany, false mahogany, and sweet bay. It
grows from Virginia to Texas, but is most abundant near the coast,
yet it ascends the Mississippi valley to Arkansas. The leaves remain
on the tree a full year, but turn yellow toward the last, in
consequence of which the species is not evergreen. In shape and
color the leaves resemble laurel. The fruit is a small, dark blue
drupe, with thin flesh. The wood is heavy, hard, very strong,
rather brittle, bright red, with thin, lighter-colored sapwood. It
was once very popular in the South for furniture. Rare pieces, some
150 years old, are still found in southern homes. The wood was
exported prior to 1741 from the Carolinas, and the quantity seems to
have been considerable. It was then regarded as a finer wood than
mahogany. It was exported to the West Indies, where mahogany was
abundant, and was made into furniture and finish for the homes of
wealthy planters and merchants. An old report describes the wood as
resembling “watered satin.” It was in early demand by shipbuilders,
but it has now ceased to go to boat yards. Except in rare instances,
it is not reported by any wood-using industries. In Texas a little
is made into pin trays, small picture frames, canes, and shelves. It
deserves a more important place, for when polished and finished, it
is one of the handsomest woods of this country. Trees attain a
height of sixty or seventy feet, and a diameter of two or three.
SWAMP BAY (_Persea pubescens_) attains a height of thirty or forty
feet, but is seldom more than a foot in diameter, and is too small
for saw timber. The wood is strong, heavy, rather soft, orange
colored, streaked with brown, and not as handsome as its larger
relative, red bay, which is associated with it from North Carolina
to Mississippi. It is an evergreen in some cases, but in others the
leaves turn yellow the second spring. The black fruit is a drupe
nearly an inch long. The wood is without attractive figure, since
its medullary rays are obscure, and the annual rings are indistinct
and produce little contrast when the trunks are sawed tangentially.
Color is the chief attraction that can be claimed for the wood. A
little is occasionally worked into interior finish.
[Illustration]
LOCUST
[Illustration: LOCUST]
LOCUST
(_Robinia Pseudacacia_)
Locust belongs to the pea family, known in botany as _Leguminosæ_.[6] In
most parts of its range it is known simply as locust, but in some
localities it is called black locust, an allusion to the color of the
bark; yellow locust, descriptive of the heartwood; white locust,
referring to the bloom; red locust, probably a reference to the wood,
and green locust for the same reason; acacia and false acacia; honey
locust, a name which belongs to another species; post locust, because it
has always been a favorite tree for fence posts; and pea-flower locust,
a reference to the bloom.
[6] This is a very large family, containing trees, shrubs, and
vines, such as locusts, acacias, beans, and clovers. There are 430
genera in the world, and many times that many species. The United
States has seventeen genera and thirty species of the pea family
that are large enough to be classed as trees. Their common names
follow: Florida Cat’s Claw, Huajillo, Texan Ebony, Wild Tamarind,
Huisache, Texas Cat’s Claw, Devil’s Claw, Leucæna, Chalky Leucæna,
Screwbean, Mesquite, Redbud, Texas Redbud, Honey Locust, Water
Locust, Coffeetree, Horsebean, Small-leaf Horsebean, Greenbark
Acacia, Palo Verde, Frijolito, Sophora, Yellow-wood, Eysenhardtia,
Indigo Thorn, Locust, New Mexican Locust, Clammy Locust, Sonora
Ironwood, Jamaica Dogwood. These species are treated separately in
the following pages, and are given space according to their relative
commercial importance in the particular regions where they grow.
Several of the names refer to the color of the wood, and seem
contradictory, for yellow, green, and red are not the same; yet the
names describe with fair accuracy. Color of the heartwood varies with
different trees, yellow with some, tinged with red with others, and
sometimes it might be appropriately called blue locust, for the
heartwood is nearer that color than any other.
The natural range of locust seems to have been confined to the
Appalachian mountain ranges from Pennsylvania to Georgia. It probably
existed as a low shrub in parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma. Its range has
been extended by planting until it now reaches practically all the
states, but is running wild in only about half of them. It has received
a great deal of attention from foresters and tree planters. It attracted
notice very early, because of its hardness, strength, and lasting
properties. At one time the planting of locust came nearly being a fad.
In England it was supposed that it would rise to great importance in
shipbuilding, and in France it was looked upon as no less important.
Books were written on the subject in both English and French. All the
details of planting and utilization were discussed. Its generic name,
_Robinia_, is in honor of a Frenchman, Robin. Extravagant claims were
once made for the wood. When American ships were gaining victory after
victory over English vessels in the war of 1812, it was asserted in
England that the cause of American success was the locust timber in
their ships. The claim may have been partly true, but other factors
contributed to the phenomenal series of successes.
The locust craze died a natural death. Too much was claimed for the
wood. Possibilities in the way of growth were over estimated. It was
assumed that the tree, if planted, would grow everywhere as vigorously
as on its native mountains in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia,
where trees two or three feet in diameter and eighty feet high were
found. Experience proved later that nature had planted the locust in the
best place for it, and when transplanted elsewhere it was apt to fall
short of expectations. Outside of its natural range it grows vigorously
for a time, and occasionally reaches large size; but in recent years the
locust borer has defeated the efforts of man to extend the range of this
species and make it profitable in regions distant from its native home.
The tree is often devoured piecemeal, branches and twigs breaking and
falling, and trunks gradually disappearing beneath the attacks of the
hungry borers. No effective method of combating the pest is known. The
planting of locust trees, once so common, has now nearly ceased.
Within its native range, and beyond that range when it has a chance,
locust is a valuable and beautiful tree. It is valuable at all times on
account of the superior wood which it furnishes, and beautiful when in
bloom and in leaf. A locust in full flower is not surpassed in
ornamental qualities by any tree of this country. It is a mass of white,
exceedingly rich in perfume. It blooms in May or June. During the summer
its foliage shows tropical luxuriance with exquisite grace. Its compound
leaves are from eight to fourteen inches long, with seven to nine
leaflets. They come late in spring and go early in autumn. The tree’s
thorns, resembling cat claws, are affixed to the bark only, and usually
fall with the leaves. The fruit is a pod three or four inches long, and
contains four or eight wingless seeds. They depend on animals to carry
them to planting places. The pods dry on the branches, and rattle in the
wind most of the autumn. The tree spreads by underground roots which
send up sprouts. A locust in winter is not a thing of beauty. It appears
to be dead; not a bud visible. Its black, angular branches lack every
line of grace.
Locust wood is remarkable for strength, hardness, and durability. It is
about one pound per cubic foot lighter than white oak, but is
thirty-four per cent stiffer and forty-five per cent stronger. Its
strength exceeds that of shagbark hickory, and it is doubtful whether a
stronger wood exists in the United States. Its hardness is equally
remarkable, and is said to be due to crystals formed in the wood cells,
and known as “rhaphides.” Its durability is probably equal to that of
Osage orange, mesquite, and catalpa, but it is not easy to fix a
standard of durability by which to compare different woods. Locust is
the best fence post wood in this country, because it is usually much
straighter than other very durable woods. The posts are expected to last
at least thirty years, and have been known to stand twice that long.
For more than 150 years locust was almost indispensable in shipbuilding,
furnishing the tree nails or large pins which held the timbers together.
It supplied material for other parts of ships also, but in smaller
quantities. The substitution of steel ships for wooden lessened demand
for locust pins, and in many instances large iron nails are used to
fasten timbers together. In spite of this, the demand for locust tree
nails is nearly always ahead of supply.
The wood’s figure is fairly strong, due to the contrast between the
springwood and that grown later, but not to the medullary rays, which
are small and inconspicuous. The wood is not in much demand for
ornamental purposes. Small amounts are made into policemen’s clubs, rake
teeth, hubs for buggy wheels, ladder rungs, and tool handles.