Trees Worth Knowing Part 20

=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 s.h.i.+ny.

=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, s.h.i.+ny 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 distinguis.h.i.+ng feature is the black fruit, ripe in August and September, l.u.s.trous, 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 cl.u.s.ters of white flowers. (_See ill.u.s.tration, 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 pa.s.s quickly, just about the time the shad run up the rivers to sp.a.w.n.

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 ident.i.ty, for the forest is roofed with green, and June-berries are quite overshadowed by more self-a.s.sertive 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 quant.i.ties 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 j.a.panese 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 ill.u.s.tration, 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 cla.s.sical 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 p.u.b.escent 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 coa.r.s.e-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 coa.r.s.e 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.