Ohio than elsewhere, hence the name; but its best development is in
Tennessee and northern Alabama. The disagreeable odor emitted by the
bark gives it the names fetid and stinking buckeye, and it is known also
as American horse chestnut. Its range is approximately the same as that
of yellow buckeye, but it is a smaller tree, rarely more than thirty
feet high, though it is seventy in exceptional cases. In common with
other trees of the species, it prefers rich soil along water courses.
The wood was formerly in demand for chip hats, but that use has
apparently ceased. The sapwood is darker than the heart which is an
exception to the general rule. Dark streaks, probably stains due to
fungus, occasionally run through the trunk. In weight, strength, and
stiffness the wood is approximately the same as yellow buckeye. Its odor
is sufficient to distinguish it from that species, and it associates
with no other except on rare occasions when it may be found with the
small buckeye in western Tennessee and southern Missouri.
CALIFORNIA BUCKEYE (_Æsculus californica_) occurs only in the state
whose name it bears. It is a short, much-branched, ill-formed tree; root
large and shaped somewhat like an inverted tub, often standing a foot or
more above the ground, and the branches rising from it. A tree so formed
is without value to the general lumberman, but cabinet makers sometimes
grub out the root and saw it transversely into thin lumber or veneer and
make small articles which possess considerable figure, due to the
involved growth, but little variety of color. Its tone is light yellow.
The tree is found in the central part of California, from near sea level
up to 4,500 in the Sierra Nevadas. It gets away from the immediate
vicinity of water courses and grows on hillsides. It is heavier than any
other American buckeye, and has very thin sapwood. The other properties
of the wood, and the botanical characters of the tree are common to
other members of the species. The seeds depend for their dispersal on
running water, when the tree grows by a stream, or on gravity, if
situated on a hillside. The seed will not grow unless buried in moist
soil, and it retains its vitality only a few months. Few trees in the
United States have larger seeds than buckeyes. The tree is short-lived,
reaching maturity in most cases in less than a hundred years. It is
sometimes planted for ornament in this country and in Europe.
SMALL BUCKEYE (_Æsculus austrina_) is one of the latest recognized
members of the buckeye household. It seldom attains a diameter above
five or six inches, or a height of twenty-five feet. It is, therefore,
too small to be seriously considered as a source of lumber, and even if
trunks were large enough, the species is too scarce to furnish many
logs. It grows on rich uplands from western Tennessee and southern
Missouri to Texas. The bright red flowers open in April, the fruit falls
in October.
PURPLE BUCKEYE (_Æsculus octandra hybrida_) is a variety characterized
by red or purple flowers and by leaves woolly on the under sides, and
bark of lighter color than that of yellow buckeye. The range follows the
Appalachian mountains from West Virginia southward. It has been reported
in Texas also. If the wood is used at all, it goes for the same purposes
as yellow buckeye.
[Illustration]
SASSAFRAS
[Illustration: SASSAFRAS]
SASSAFRAS
(_Sassafras Sassafras_)
The French settlers in Florida were the first white men to give the name
sassafras to this tree, but the Indians called it by that name long
before. It was a tree which Indians were sure to name, because it had an
individuality which appealed to them. It is not known what the real
meaning of the word was, when the southern Indians used it. After the
French adopted the name in Florida, it passed to other colonies and
other languages, and has led to numerous disputes since. Many have
erroneously supposed that the name is of Latin origin. When the English
colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, the tree was well
known by that name, but it was pronounced so variously and spelled in so
many ways that it was often almost unrecognizable. It is pronounced
variously and spelled differently yet. It is called sassafras in most
regions, and in others is saxifrax, sassafas, sassafac, sassafrac, and
saxifrax tree.
Its range covers the territory from Massachusetts to Iowa and Kansas,
and south to Florida and Texas. Some of that range it has occupied for
vast periods of time, for sassafras leaves have been found embedded in
the Cretaceous formations of Long Island. Near the northern limit of its
range it is generally small, often of brush size; but further south it
becomes a tree which sometimes exceeds 100 feet in height, and three or
four in diameter. The best development of the species is in Arkansas and
Missouri.
Sassafras belongs to the laurel family. Strangely enough, the two trees
which are usually supposed to be typical laurels--namely, mountain
laurel (_Kalmia latifolia_) and great rhododendron, do not belong to the
laurel family, but the heath family. The laurel family to which
sassafras belongs includes many species in all parts of the world, some
are evergreen, others are not, but all characterized by the strong,
pungent odor of their wood or bark, and all having fruit with a single
seed like a plum or cherry. The camphor tree from the distillation of
whose wood commercial camphor (except synthetic camphor made largely
from turpentine) is derived, belongs to this family, as do certain bay
trees of the southern states. It was formerly supposed that sassafras
existed only in the eastern half of the United States; but a species
closely resembling ours, if not identical with it, has recently been
found in China. The California laurel (_Umbellularia californica_) is in
the same family with sassafras.
This tree has had a peculiar history. It was once supposed to possess
miraculous healing powers, and was shipped from Virginia to England in
one of the first cargoes to go to that country from the present
territory of the United States. Its supposed value did not consist in
its use as lumber, but in some medicinal property which it was reputed
to possess. People appeared to believe that it would renew the youth of
the human race. Some portion of this superstition has clung round
sassafras to this day, and it is not entirely confined to ignorant
people. Bedsteads made of sassafras were supposed to drive away certain
nightly visitors which disturb slumber. In southeastern Arkansas and
northwestern Mississippi, bedsteads are still made of this wood, with
the belief that sleep will be sounder. The same custom doubtless
prevails elsewhere. In northern Louisiana floors of sassafras are
occasionally laid in negro cabins because of the same superstition, and
in the firm belief that it will keep out animals as large as rats and
mice. Some of the mountaineers of Kentucky, where each family makes its
own soap, insist that the kettle must be stirred with a sassafras stick
or it will produce a poor quality of soap. Among the mountains of West
Virginia many a farmer equips his henhouse with sassafras poles for
roosts, fully convinced that he has put an effective quietus on all
tribes, shoals, and kindred of _menopon pallidum_, and the hens will
sleep better.
The production of sassafras oil is perhaps the largest industry
dependent upon this tree. Roots are grubbed by the ton and are subjected
to destructive distillation. Much of this work is carried on in Virginia
where sassafras spreads quickly into abandoned fields, springing up from
seeds carried by birds. Veritable thickets soon take possession. Here is
where the sassafras oil supply comes from. Contractors often clear the
old fields and make them ready for tillage, taking the roots for pay.
The wood weighs 31.42 pounds per cubic foot; is very durable when
exposed to dampness; is slightly aromatic; inclined to check in drying;
the layers of annual growth are marked by rings of large pores;
summerwood is quite distinct from the earlier growth; medullary rays are
many and thin; color dull orange-brown, the thin sapwood light yellow.
Sassafras goes to sawmills in all regions where it is large enough for
lumber, but the total cut is small. Reports from sawmills in 1909
credited this species with only 25,000 feet in the United States, and it
was still less in 1910. It is evident that this is only a small portion
of the total output, and probably Tennessee alone produces that much.
The wood is sold with other species and loses its name, frequently
passing as ash. The wood bears considerable resemblance to ash, in grain
and color, but is lighter in weight, and much lower in strength.
Sassafras was one of the canoe woods of early times along the lower
Mississippi and its tributaries. Its two principal advantages over most
woods with which it was associated was its light weight and lasting
qualities. Canoes of this timber in Louisiana have given continued
service for a third of a century.
In all parts of its range, wherever it is of sufficient size, it has
been used for posts. It is generally considered good for about twenty
years. Large trunks were formerly split for rails, and a few are
utilized in that way still, but most timber large enough for rails, now
goes to sawmills. In Texas most of the sassafras supplied by sawmills is
manufactured into furniture, but is listed as ash. The same thing is
done in Arkansas and Missouri, but the use in the latter state is
extended to interior house finish and office and bank fixtures.
Sometimes it is made the outside wood, and the figure caused by sawing
the logs tangentially is accentuated by stains and fillers. The figure
of quarter-sawed wood is not attractive because the medullary rays are
too small. It lasts well as railroad ties and a few are found in service
in many parts of the tree’s range, but those who see it in the track are
liable to mistake it for chestnut.
A by-product of sassafras deserves mention--tea made from the flowers or
from the bark of the roots. It is relished in the early spring, and is
popular in most regions where the tree is known. The bark is a
commercial commodity. It is tied in small bundles, and the price at
retail ranges from a nickel to a dime each. Drug stores and grocers sell
it. In the city of Washington in early spring sassafras peddlers canvas
the city from center to circumference. They are generally negro men and
women who dig the roots on the neighboring hills of Virginia and
Maryland, strip the bark, tie it in small bundles, and by diligence and
perseverance, succeed in converting the merchandise into money.
Sassafras is often cited as an example of a tree with leaves of
different forms. Three shapes are common, and all frequently occur on
the same tree, and even on the same twig. One has no lobes, another has
one lobe like the thumb of a mitten, and another has three.
LANCEWOOD (_Ocotea catesbyana_) is a small evergreen tree, looks much
like laurel, and grows in southern Florida, on the islands and on the
mainland in the vicinity of Biscayne bay. It is closely related to
sassafras, and the bark has an aromatic odor. It belongs to a group of
trees with nearly 200 species scattered in hot regions of both
hemispheres. This is the only one belonging to the United States, and it
appears to be a newcomer on these shores, from the fact that it has
succeeded in obtaining so limited a foothold. It keeps well south of the
region where it is likely to be frosted and it seldom exceeds a height
of thirty feet and a diameter of eighteen inches. The fruit ripens in
autumn and is dark blue with flesh thin and dry. The wood is hard,
heavy, strong, checks badly in drying, and has a rich brown color, the
sapwood being yellow. Rings of annual growth are marked with many small,
regularly-distributed open ducts; medullary rays are thin and numerous;
wood weighs 47.94 pounds per cubic foot; durable in contact with the
soil, beautifully colored, and is highly prized for small cabinet work
and novelties. At Miami, Florida, small trunks cut on neighboring
hummocks, or brought from the keys, are worked into souvenirs to be sold
to visitors. Lancewood fishing rods are among the strongest and most
expensive on the market; but little of the material of which they are
made grows in Florida. It is also manufactured into billiard cues and
small handles.
[Illustration]
MADRONA
[Illustration: MADRONA]
MADRONA
(_Arbutus Menziesii_)
Madrona is an interesting tree which ranges from British Columbia
southward to central California, attaining its greatest development in
the redwood forests of northern California, where trees are sometimes
one hundred feet high and six or seven feet in diameter. It is not only
an interesting tree itself, but it has many interesting relatives, some
of which are trees, others shrubs, and still others only small plants or
vines. It may be called a second cousin to the common huckleberry, the
mountain laurel, trailing arbutus, the azaleas, the tiny wintergreen,
and the great rhododendron. It has some poor relations, but many that
are highly respectable. It belongs to the heath family, of which there
are seventy genera, and more than a thousand species; but less than half
of them are in America, the others being scattered widely over the
world.
The madrona, when at its best, is one of the largest members of the
family; but it is not always at its best. It sometimes degenerates into
a sprawling shrub, where it grows on poor ground and on cold, dry
mountain tops. It is manifestly not fair to study any tree at its worst,
and it is particularly not fair to the madrona, which varies so greatly
in its appearance. At one place it may be scarcely large enough to shade
the lair of a jackrabbit, and at another it spreads its branches wide
enough to shade an army--a small army, however, say, about two thousand
men. A tree of that size may be found within a few hours’ ride of San
Francisco. Its branches cover an area of from eight thousand to ten
thousand square feet.
When madrona grows in the open it throws out wide limbs like a southern
live oak, though not so large or long. Its crown is rounded and
graceful; but when it grows in forests, where other trees crowd it, the
trunk rises straight up to lift the crown into the sunlight and fresh
air. The madrona is seen in all its glory in northwestern California,
where it catches some of the warmth and the moist air from the Pacific.
It follows the ranges of the Siskiyou mountains eastward near the
boundary of California and Oregon. It is usually mixed with other forest
trees, but sometimes large stands nearly pure are encountered, and there
the long trunks, rather gray near the ground, but wine-colored above,
rise in imposing beauty and are lost in the evergreen crowns.
The leaves suggest those of laurel, but are broader. The large clusters
of white flowers are among the glories of the vegetable kingdom. George
B. Sudworth, dendrologist of the United States Forest Service, who
usually describes in strictly prosaic terms, breaks away from that habit
long enough to compare madrona flowers to lilies of the valley, in his
“Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope.” The flowers appear from March to
May, depending on latitude and elevation.
The brilliant orange-red fruit ripens in the fall, and is often borne in
great abundance. It renders the crowns of the trees very beautiful. The
fruit is about half an inch long and contains many small angular seeds.
The fruit is said to contain a substance which puts to sleep wild
creatures that feed on it. The claim is probably mythical, for birds
breakfast extravagantly on it in the morning, and apparently do not do
any sleeping until after sunset.
This tree was discovered by and named for Archibald Menzies, a Scotch
botanist who traveled in the Northwest more than a hundred years ago. It
has several local names, among them being madrove, laurel wood,
madrone-tree, laurel, and manzanita. The last is the proper name of
another small tree which is associated with madrona and is closely
related to it.
The wood weighs 43.95 pounds per cubic foot. It is a little below
eastern white oak in fuel value, a little above it in strength, and
somewhat under it in stiffness. The color is pale reddish-brown,
resembling applewood in tone, but generally not quite so dark. The wood
is porous, but the pores are very small. Medullary rays are numerous but
thin. On account of the rays being of a little deeper red than the other
wood, quarter-sawed stock is handsome and of somewhat peculiar
appearance. The figure is much like quarter-sawed beech, but of deeper,
more handsome color. The contrast between springwood and summerwood is
not strong, though easily seen. Generally, the summerwood constitutes
about one-fourth of the annual ring. The tree grows slowly, but with
much irregularity. The increase in one season may be four or five times
as great as in another. The bark exfoliates, and is quite thin.
Madrona has never been put to much use. Difficulties in seasoning it
have stood in the way. The wood warps and checks. Similar difficulties
with other woods have been overcome, and such troubles should not be
unduly discouraging. The beauty of the wood is unquestioned. It presents
a fine appearance when worked into furniture, particularly in small
panels and turned work, like spindles, knobs, and small posts. When made
into grills it shows a surprising richness of tone. The wood polishes
almost to the smoothness of holly. Small quantities are made into
flooring; a little goes to the furniture makers; lathes turn some of it
for novelties and souvenirs; fuel cutters sell it as cordwood; and
tanbark peelers cut the trees for the thin, papery bark. In that case
the trunks are left to decay, unless they happen to be convenient to a
cordwood market.
One of the most extensive uses for the wood of madrona is for charcoal
burning. Blacksmiths buy it because it is cheaper than coal, and some is
used in shops where soldering and welding are done; but the most
exacting demand comes from gunpowder manufacturers. They find this wood
almost equal to alder and willow as a source of charcoal suitable for
powder.
MEXICAN MADRONA (_Arbutus xalapensis_) might properly be called Texas
madrona as it occurs in that state and probably in no other, but its
range extends southward into Mexico. It produces a poorly shaped trunk
seldom much more than twenty feet high and one foot in diameter, and
usually divided into several branches near the ground. It blooms in
March and ripens its fruit in midsummer. The tree is found on dry
limestone hills, and in the valley of the Rio Blanco, and among the
Eagle mountains. Cabinet makers in Texas put the wood to rather exacting
uses after they have carefully seasoned it to overcome its natural
tendency to check. It is very hard; its color is a little lighter than
applewood which it resembles; annual rings are scarcely visible, so
regular and even is the year’s growth. In Texas the wood is made into
plane stocks, tool handles, and mathematical instruments.
ARIZONA MADRONA (_Arbutus arizonica_) has a restricted range on the
Santa Catalina and Santa Rita mountains of southern Arizona, where it
ascends to an altitude of 8,000 feet. The species extends southward into
Mexico. The largest trees attain a height of fifty feet and a diameter
of two. Trunks are usually straight and shapely, and show the thin, red
bark common to the genus. The wood resembles that of the species in
Texas, and doubtless is suited to the same purposes, but no utilization
of it has been reported, except for fuel, and for fences and sheds on
mountain ranches. When the region becomes more thickly settled, the
value of the wood will be appreciated.
MANZANITA (_Arctostaphylos manzanita_) is not generally welcomed by
botanists into the tree class. They say it is too small; but it is
as large as some of the laurels which go as trees without question,
and is shaped much like them. There are several species of
manzanita. The word is Spanish and means “little apple.” The name is
natural, for one of the most noticeable things about manzanita is
the fruit, the size of well-grown huckleberries. It is shaped like
an apple, and its tart taste suggests that fruit. The Digger Indians
along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California
gather the berries by the sack, dry them, and keep them for
winter--if they can. It is often impossible to keep them because,
like other fruit, they are apt to become wormy. When the Indians
discover them in that condition they display rare thrift and economy
for savages, by soaking the fruit and pressing out the juice, which
is said to pass for a pretty fair quality of cider, but it must be
quickly consumed or it will mother and change to vinegar. Indians
now put the berries to use less frequently than in early times when
they were nearly always hungry.
Manzanita is of the same family as madrona. Its range extends along
the mountains of the Pacific coast ranges from Oregon to Mexico, and
inland to Utah. The largest trees are about twenty feet high and a
foot or less in diameter; very much divided and branched, with limbs
crooked in more ways, perhaps, than those of any other
representative of the vegetable kingdom. Thousands of canes are cut
from the branches, and if any living man ever saw a straight one he
failed to report it. Manzanita grows in almost impenetrable thickets
on dry slopes and ridges. Its thin foliage casts so pale a shadow
that the tree’s shade is little cooler than the boiling sun upon the
open naked ground and rocks. The bark is a reddish-chocolate color,
and exfoliates in scales of papery thinness. The heart is nearly of
the same color as the bark, but the sap is white and very thin. The
wood is hard, strong, stiff, but exceedingly brittle. If a branch is
sharply bent it will fly into splinters.
The uses of the wood are numerous, but the total quantity demanded
is moderate. Novelty stores sell small articles to tourists in
California, sometimes passing the wood off as mountain mahogany
which does not so much as belong to the same family. The most common
articles manufactured by novelty shops from manzanita are canes,
paper weights, paper knives, rulers, spoons, napkin rings, curtain
rings, cuff buttons, dominos, manicure sticks, jewel boxes, match
safes, pin trays, and photo frames.
[Illustration]
COTTONWOOD
[Illustration: COTTONWOOD]
COTTONWOOD[9]
(_Populus Deltoides_)
[9] The following species grow in the United States: Cottonwood
(_Populus deltoides_), Aspen (_Populus tremuloides_), Largetooth
aspen (_Populus grandidentata_), Swamp Cottonwood (_Populus
heterophylla_), Balm of Gilead (_Populus balsamifera_), Lanceleaf
Cottonwood (_Populus acuminata_), Narrowleaf Cottonwood (_Populus
angustifolia_), Black Cottonwood (_Populus trichocarpa_), Fremont
Cottonwood (_Populus fremontii_), Mexican Cottonwood (_Populus
mexicana_), Texas Cottonwood (_Populus wislizeni_).
Eleven species of cottonwood are found in the United States, if all
trees of the genus _Populus_ are classed as cottonwoods. It is not
universally admitted, however, that they should be so classed. The
common cottonwood is the most widely known of all of them, but it is
recognized under different names in different regions, viz.: Big
cottonwood, yellow cottonwood, cotton tree, Carolina poplar, necklace
poplar, broadleaf poplar, and whitewood.