THE LINDENS, THE LIQUIDAMBER, AND THE SASSAFRAS
Families Tiliaceæ, Hamamelidaceæ, and Lauraceæ
The _Tiliaceæ_ are a tropical family with a single genus, the linden,
as a representative in our climate. There are two species found wild
south of New York besides the common linden, the small leaved basswood
and the white basswood, but the common linden and the European linden
are the two trees found commonly in New England.
[Sidenote: Linden; Basswood
_Tilia americana_]
_A tall tree, 60 to 80 feet high, frequently excurrent. The bark is
rather smooth with shallow, close furrows, and the twigs are smooth,
with a good deal of color. The leaf-scars are alternate, and the buds
are smooth and red, the terminal one often being absent._
The main trunk of the linden frequently extends upwards undivided
through the crown to the tip of the tree, with small branches growing
from the trunk all the way up. This excurrent characteristic of the
linden is especially marked in young trees which have grown in open
situations, but even when the trunk has divided into large branches,
or has grown in the forest shaded by other trees, and has lost its
excurrent shape, the small branches growing directly out of the trunk
distinguish it from other trees. The color in the young stems and
buds is another means of its identification, and in early spring the
deepening color in the twigs from the rising sap, shows that the linden
is almost as responsive as the willow to warm rains and sunshine.
The wood is soft and white and close-grained. It is used for carving
in the interior finish of houses, and for making wooden ware and cheap
furniture. Sugar has been made from the sap, and the inner bark is made
into a coarse cordage and matting, and in Europe a coarse cloth is made
from it.
The Latin generic name probably comes from _ptilon_, the Greek word for
a feather, in allusion to the feather-like bracts on the clusters of
the flowers. The specific name, _americana_, was given to our native
linden to distinguish it from the European species.
[Illustration: AMERICAN LINDEN
_Tilia americana_
Page 142
]
The linden is found growing wild in rich woods from New Brunswick to
Georgia and as far west as Kansas.
The European lindens, or as they are called in England “lime trees,”
may be distinguished from our linden by their twigs, which are more
numerous and more slender than those of our species. The linden has
long been a favorite tree for formal effects, both in Europe and in
this country. “The French,” Du Hamel says, “growing tired of the
horsechestnut for avenues, adopted the lime for that purpose, in the
time of Louis XIV., and accordingly the approaches to the residences
of the French, as well as the English gentry of that date are bordered
with lime trees.” Since the day of the modern school of landscape
gardening the linden is not nearly so much planted as it used to be.
A successful experiment has been tried in Germany of making table oil
from the seeds of this tree. A paste like chocolate has also been made
from the fruit, but it does not keep. The family name of Linnæus, the
famous botanist, was originally derived from _linn_, the Swedish name
for the linden, a large tree having always stood by the old family
homestead.
The European lindens are not so well suited to our climate as our
native basswood, but it seems to be more generally planted in our city
streets, in spite of this fact.
* * * * *
The _Hamamelis_ family is a small order of trees and shrubs with two
genera in the United States,—the _Hamamelis_ and _Liquidambar_; each
genus has but one species.
[Sidenote: Liquidamber; Sweet Gum
_Liquidambar styraciflua_]
_A large tree, 30 to 150 feet high, with deeply furrowed bark. The
twigs are covered with corky ridges. The leaf-scars are alternate. The
buds are reddish in color and smooth. The pith is in the form of a
pentagon when the twig is cut across. The fruit is a round, dry, open,
rough catkin hanging on the tree through the winter._
[Illustration: LIQUIDAMBER
_Liquidambar styraciflua_
Page 144
]
The liquidamber is at all times beautiful, and in winter the broad,
corky wings along the twigs give it a singular appearance, adding much
to one’s interest in the tree. It is unusual to find so much color in
corky ridged stems as in those of the liquidamber. The stems of the
cork elm and the mossy cup oak have these peculiar corky layers, but
neither of them have smooth, polished stems between the broken ridges,
nor such radiant color as those of the liquidamber. When this tree
grows in open situations its trunk divides a short distance from
the ground, and the branches form a pyramidal head. In moist Southern
forests, however, where the liquidamber grows to be very tall, its
trunk is straight, a uniform size in diameter, and often undivided into
branches to the height of seventy or eighty feet. Michaux describes
a liquidamber which he found growing in a swamp in Georgia, which
measured fifteen feet and seven inches in circumference at five feet
from the ground, and these trees sometimes grow to be over 150 feet
high when the conditions are favorable to their growth.
The wood is heavy and close-grained and is used in cabinet making, for
fruit boxes, and for the outside finish of houses. Professor Sargent
says that the future supply of the wood is reasonably certain from the
fact that the real home of this tree in those parts of the country
where it attains its greatest development is in deep swamps, always
inundated every year during several weeks at a time, and incapable of
being drained and cultivated. The generic name, _Liquidambar_, from
_liquidus_ (liquid), _ambar_ (amber), was given to this tree by Linnæus
in reference to the fragrant juice which exudes from its stems. It is
sometimes collected and used as an ointment in medicine. The flow of
resinous balsam increases according to the warmth of the climate in
which the liquidamber is found. The specific name, _styraciflua_, from
the Latin word _styrax_ (storax), also alludes to this juice, storax
being a resinous gum.
The liquidamber is found growing in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and
from there southward to Florida and westward. It grows well in gardens
in the neighborhood of Boston; but it is liable to suffer after severe
winters throughout Eastern New England.
The witch-hazel (_Hamamelis virginiana_) is a small tree or shrub,
10 to 30 feet high, with a smooth brown bark and flat branches,
covered through the winter with woody fruit capsules. It is found on
the borders of moist woods throughout New England and its profusion
of yellow thread-like flowers in the bare November woods make it a
striking object in autumn. The combination on a single tree, at the
same time, of blossoms and ripe fruit is unusual in any climate, and
the witch-hazel is the only example of it in the Northeastern States.
Linnæus gave it the Greek name _hamamelis_, which means bearing flowers
together with the fruit.
[Illustration: SASSAFRAS
_Sassafras sassafras_
Page 147
]
The Indians were the first to use the bark for curing inflammations,
and its medicinal virtues have long been recognized, in spite of the
fact that chemists consider that it has no active medicinal properties.
On the slopes of some of the southern mountains the witch-hazel becomes
a small tree, although we are accustomed to find it a rather straggling
shrub in our New England woods.
* * * * *
The _Lauraceæ_ are an order of aromatic trees and shrubs found chiefly
in the tropics; of trees there is a single genus of a single species
found in New England,—the sassafras.
[Sidenote: Sassafras
_Sassafras sassafras_]
_A tree common in rich woods. It is 15 to 100 feet high, with a rough
bark and twisted branches. Green twigs, smooth and sweet scented, with
an aromatic mucilaginous juice. Large buds; semi-oval, semicircular,
alternate leaf-scars. The flowers come a little before the leaves
unfold. The aromatic fragrance is strongest in the bark of the roots._
Few trees are more interesting in winter than the sassafras. The
color of their smooth, bare stems is an exquisite shade of green, the
terminal buds are large for the size of the slender twigs and tiny
leaf-scars, and the delicious, aromatic taste and fragrance when the
twigs are broken are most unusual. The branches often have a curious
spirally twisted appearance, a corkscrew effect, which with the rough
bark of the trunk give the tree an ancient weather-beaten aspect when
it is comparatively young. The sassafras was one of the first American
trees which became known in Europe. In the middle of the sixteenth
century the French in Florida were told by the Indians about its
curative properties, and from that time it was sought after,—sassafras
roots having formed a part of the first cargo exported from
Massachusetts. J. C. Loudon, an English writer on trees sixty years
ago, had an original theory, that the discovery of America was largely
due to the sassafras. “It was its strong fragrance smelt by Columbus,”
he says, in the third volume of his “Arboretum,” “that encouraged him
to persevere when his crew mutinied, and enabled him to convince them
that land was near at hand.”
[Illustration: TRUNK OF A SASSAFRAS
Page 148
]
Thoreau in his walks through the winter woods about Concord in February
says: “When I break off a twig of green-barked sassafras, as I am
going through the woods now, and smell it, I am startled to find it as
fragrant as in summer. It is an importation of all the spices of
Oriental summers into our New England winter, very foreign to the snow
and the oak leaves.” This Oriental spiciness may be partly accounted
for by the fact that our sassafras is related to the camphor and
cinnamon trees of the tropics.
The wood is soft and brittle, but it has durability when placed in
contact with the soil, which makes it useful for posts and rails. It
is also used for ox yokes and cooperage. Oil of sassafras, which is
distilled from the bark of the roots, is used for perfuming soap.
This tree is confined to eastern North America, and deserves far more
attention than has been given it by landscape gardeners,—it is a
beautiful tree as well as an individual one.
_Sassafras_ was a popular name used by the French in Florida, and it
has become both its generic and specific name.