Handbook of the Trees of New England Part 1

Handbook of the Trees of New England.

by Lorin Low Dame and Henry Brooks.

PREFACE.

There is no lack of good manuals of botany in this country. There still seems place for an adequately ill.u.s.trated book of convenient size for field use. The larger manuals, moreover, cover extensive regions and sometimes fail by reason of their universality to give a definite idea of plants as they grow within more limited areas. New England marks a meeting place of the Canadian and Alleghanian floras. Many southern plants, long after they have abandoned more elevated situations northward, continue to advance up the valleys of the Connecticut and Merrimac rivers, in which they ultimately disappear entirely or else reappear in the valley of the St. Lawrence; while many northern plants pus.h.i.+ng southward maintain a more or less precarious existence upon the mountain summits or in the cold swamps of New England, and sometimes follow along the mountain ridges to the middle or southern states. In addition to these two floras, some southwestern and western species have invaded Vermont along the Champlain valley, and thrown out pickets still farther eastward.

At or near the limit of a species, the size and habit of plants undergo great change; in the case of trees, to which this book is restricted, often very noticeable. There is no fixed, absolute dividing line between trees and shrubs. In accordance with the usual definition, a tree must have a single trunk, unbranched at or near the base, and must be at least fifteen feet in height.

Trees that are native in New England, or native in other sections of the United States and thoroughly established in New England, are described and, for the most part, figured. Foreign trees, though locally established, are not figured. Trees may be occasionally spontaneous over a large area without really forming a const.i.tuent part of the flora. Even the apple and pear, when originating spontaneously and growing without cultivation, quickly become degenerate and show little tendency to possess themselves of the soil at the expense of the native growths. Gleditsia, for example, while clearly locally established, has with some hesitation been accorded pictorial representation.

The geographical distribution is treated under three heads: Canada and Alaska; New England; south of New England and westward. With regard to the distribution outside of New England, the standard authorities have been followed. An effort extending through several years has been made to give the distribution as definitely as possible in each of the New England states, and while previous publications have been freely consulted, the present work rests mainly upon the observations of living botanists.

All descriptions are based upon the habit of trees as they appear in New England, unless special mention is made to the contrary. The descriptions are designed to apply to trees as they grow in open land, with full s.p.a.ce for the development of their characteristics under favorable conditions. In forest trees there is much greater uniformity; the trunks are more slender, taller, often unbranched to a considerable height, and the heads are much smaller.

When the trunk tapers uniformly from the ground upward, the given diameter is taken at the base; when the trunk is reinforced at the base, the measurements are made above the swell of the roots; when reinforced at the ground and also at the branching point, as often in the American elm, the measurements are made at the smallest place between the swell of the roots and of the branches.

A regular order has been followed in the description for the purpose of ready comparison. No explanation of the headings used seems necessary, except to state that the _habitat_ is used in the more customary present acceptation to indicate the place where a plant naturally grows, as in swamps or upon dry hillsides. Under the head of "Horticultural Value,"

the requisite information is given for an intelligent choice of trees for ornamental purposes.

The order and names of families follow, in the main, Engler and Prantl.

In accordance with the general tendency of New England botanists to conform to the best usage until an authoritative agreement has been reached with regard to nomenclature by an international congress, the Berlin rule has been followed for genera, and priority under the genus for species. Other names in use at the present day are given as synonyms and included in the index.

Only those common names are given which are actually used in some part of New England, whether or not the same name is applied to different trees. It seems best to record what is, and not what ought to be. Common names that are the creation of botanists have been disregarded altogether. Any attempt to displace a name in wide use, even by one that is more appropriate, is futile, if not mischievous.

The plates are from original drawings by Mrs. Elizabeth Gleason Bigelow, in all cases from living specimens, and they have been carefully compared with the plates in other works. So far as practicable, the drawings were made of life size, with the exception of the dissected portions of small flowers, which were enlarged. In this way, though not on a perfectly uniform scale, they are, when reduced to the necessary s.p.a.ce, distinct in all their parts.

So far as consistent with due precision, popular terms have been used in description, but not when such usage involved tedious periphrase.

Especial mention should be made of those botanists whose a.s.sistance has been essential to a knowledge of the distribution of species in the New England states: Maine,--Mr. M. L. Fernald; New Hamps.h.i.+re,--Mr. Wm. F.

Flint, Report of Forestry Commission; Vermont,--President Ezra Brainerd; Ma.s.sachusetts,--trees about Northampton, Mrs. Emily Hitchc.o.c.k Terry; throughout the Connecticut river valley, Mr. E. L. Morris; Rhode Island,--Professor W. W. Bailey, Professor J. F. Collins; Connecticut,--Mr. C. H. Bissell, Mr. C. K. Averill, Mr. J. N. Bishop.

Dr. B. L. Robinson has given advice in general treatment and in matters of nomenclature; Dr. C. W. Swan and Mr. Charles H. Morss have made a critical examination of the ma.n.u.script; Mr. Warren H. Manning has contributed the "Horticultural Values" throughout the work; and Miss M.

S. E. James has prepared the index. To these and to all others who have given a.s.sistance in the preparation of this work, the grateful thanks of the authors are due.

TREES OF NEW ENGLAND.

PINOIDEae. PINE FAMILY. CONIFERS.

ABIETACEae. CUPRESSACEae.

Trees or shrubs, resinous; leaves simple, mostly evergreen, relatively small, entire, needle-shaped, awl-shaped, linear, or scale-like; stipules none; flowers catkin-like; calyx none; corolla none; ovary represented by a scale (ovuliferous scale) bearing the naked ovules on its surface.

ABIETACEae.

LARIX. PINUS. PICEA. TSUGA. ABIES.

Buds scaly; leaves evergreen and persistent for several years (except in _Larix_), scattered along the twigs, spirally arranged or tufted, linear, needle-shaped, or scale-like; sterile and fertile flowers separate upon the same plant; stamens (subtended by scales) spirally arranged upon a central axis, each bearing two pollen-sacs surmounted by a broad-toothed connective; fertile flowers composed of spirally arranged bracts or cover-scales, each bract subtending an ovuliferous scale; cover-scale and ovuliferous scale attached at their bases; cover-scale usually remaining small, ovuliferous scale enlarging, especially after fertilization, gradually becoming woody or leathery and bearing two ovules at its base; cones maturing (except in _Pinus_) the first year; ovuliferous scales in fruit usually known as cone-scales; seeds winged; roots mostly spreading horizontally at a short distance below the surface.

CUPRESSACEae.

THUJA. CUPRESSUS. JUNIPERUS.

Leaf-buds not scaly; leaves evergreen and persistent for several years, opposite, verticillate, or sometimes scattered, scale-like, often needle-shaped in seedlings and sometimes upon the branches of older plants; flowers minute; stamens and pistils in separate blossoms upon the same plant or upon different plants; stamens usually bearing 3-5 pollen-sacs on the underside; scales of fertile aments few, opposite or ternate; fruit small cones, or berries formed by coalescence of the fleshy cone-scales; otherwise as in _Abietaceae_.

Larix Americana, Michx.

_Larix laricina, Koch._

TAMARACK. HACMATACK. LARCH. JUNIPER.

=Habitat and Range.=--Low lands, shaded hillsides, borders of ponds; in New England preferring cold swamps; sometimes far up mountain slopes.

Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia, west to the Rocky mountains; from the Rockies through British Columbia, northward along the Yukon and Mackenzie systems, to the limit of tree growth beyond the Arctic circle.

Maine, New Hamps.h.i.+re, and Vermont,--abundant, filling swamps acres in extent, alone or a.s.sociated with other trees, mostly black spruce; growing depressed and scattered on Katahdin at an alt.i.tude of 4000 feet; Ma.s.sachusetts,--rather common, at least northward; Rhode Island,--not reported; Connecticut,--occasional in the northern half of the state; reported as far south as Danbury (Fairfield county).

South along the mountains to New Jersey and Pennsylvania; west to Minnesota.

=Habit.=--The only New England conifer that drops its leaves in the fall; a tree 30-70 feet high, reduced at great elevations to a height of 1-2 feet, or to a shrub; trunk 1-3 feet in diameter, straight, slender; branches very irregular or in indistinct whorls, for the most part nearly horizontal; often ending in long spire-like shoots; branchlets numerous, head conical, symmetrical while the tree is young, especially when growing in open swamps; when old extremely variable, occasionally with contorted or drooping limbs; foliage pale green, turning to a dull yellow in autumn.

=Bark.=--Bark of trunk reddish or grayish brown, separating at the surface into small roundish scales in old trees, in young trees smooth; season's shoots gray or light brown in autumn.

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds small, globular, reddish.

Leaves simple, scattered along the season's shoots, cl.u.s.tered on the short, thick dwarf branches, about an inch long, pale green, needle-shaped; apex obtuse; sessile.

=Inflorescence.=--March to April. Flowers lateral, solitary, erect; the sterile from leafless, the fertile from leafy dwarf branches; sterile roundish, sessile; anthers yellow: fertile oblong, short-stalked; bracts crimson or red.

=Fruit.=--Cones upon dwarf branches, erect or inclining upwards, ovoid to cylindrical, 1/2-3/4 of an inch long, purplish or reddish brown while growing, light brown at maturity, persistent for at least a year; scales thin, obtuse to truncate; edge entire, minutely toothed or erose; seeds small, winged.

=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy in New England; grows in any good soil, preferring moist locations; the formal outline of the young trees becomes broken, irregular, and picturesque with age, making the mature tree much more attractive than the European species common to cultivation. Rarely for sale in nurseries, but obtainable from collectors. To be successfully transplanted, it must be handled when dormant. Propagated from seed.

=Note.=--The European species, with which the mature plant is often confused, has somewhat longer leaves and larger cones; a form common in cultivation has long, pendulous branches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE I.--Larix Americana.]

1. Branch with sterile and fertile flowers.