Part 59

RED ALDER

RED ALDER

(Alnus Oregona)

Many species of alder are found in various parts of the world, and on both sides of the equator, but chiefly in the northern hemisphere. Some of these are trees, others are shrubs. Six species belonging in the tree class grow in the United States, besides others which remain shrubs. Some trees are burdened with names, changing them with locality, but not so with alder. An adjective may accompany the name, as red, white, seaside, or mountain, to describe it, but it is always alder, no matter where it grows. The different species cover much of the United States, and few large areas are found which have not one or more species. It grows from sea level up to 7,000 feet or more, but some species thrive at one elevation, and others above or below.

The alders are old inhabitants of the earth. They had a place in the Eocene and Miocene forests of the old world and new. It is not apparent that they have either gained or lost in extent of range during the hundreds of thousands of years which measure their tenancy on the earth. They have not been aggressive in pushing their way, nor have they shown a disposition to retire before the aggression of other trees. Some alders bear seeds equipped with wings for wind distribution, others produce wingless seeds which depend on water to bear them to suitable situations and plant them. Of course, the water-borne seeds are planted on muddy shores or on the banks of running streams, and the trees of those species are confined to such situations. The alders belong to the birch family.

Red alder is the largest of the alder group in this country. Mature trees are from forty to ninety feet high, and from one to three feet in diameter. The northern limit of its range crosses southern Alaska; its southern border is in southern California. It is a Pacific coast tree, with a north and south range of 2,000 miles. Trunks are straight, and branches are generally slender. The largest specimens grow in the vicinity of Puget Sound. The bark is thin, leaves are from three to ten inches long, cones from one-half to one inch in length, seeds have very narrow, thin wings, and are about the size of radish seeds. The cones remain green in color until the seeds are fully ripe, but they finally turn brown, and seeds are liberated during the fall and winter.

Red alder is given that name because the newly cut wood is liable to change quickly to a reddish-brown. This applies to the whitish sapwood only; but since the trunk is largely sapwood, it is an important matter. It is not apparent whether the change in color is due to attack by fungi, or to some chemical change in the sap. It is not believed that the change in color weakens the wood, at least it does not appear to do so immediately. The heart is reddish, and when dressed and polished, it presents a fine appearance.

Red alder when thoroughly air dry weighs about thirty pounds per cubic foot, which is slightly above the weight of basswood. It is strong for its weight, rating only eight per cent below white oak, while in stiffness or elasticity it is about twelve per cent above white oak. It is not difficult to season, is soft, stands well when made up, and is one of the most important hardwoods of the northwest Pacific coast. More than 2,000,000 feet a year go to wood-using factories in Washington and Oregon.

The Indians of the Northwest, when they had only stone hatchets or the crudest kinds of metal tools, found red alder a wood which worked so easily that they specialized with it. They made canoes of the largest trunks, and all manner of troughs, trays, trenches, platters, and dugouts, some of no more than a pint in capacity, others holding three or four bushels. The Field Museum in Chicago has a collection of these Indian utensils made of alder. The workmanship shows considerable skill mixed with barbaric art. There are carvings of eagles and bears which are not entirely grotesque. The utensils were designed primarily to contain food at ceremonial feasts, or it was stored for times of scarcity. Among them are cooking vessels of alder in which meat was boiled by filling the troughs with water and dropping in hot stones.

Furniture manufacturers are the largest users of red alder. Carefully selected heartwood, finished in the proper color, looks much like cherry, though it lacks something of the characteristic cherry luster. The sapwood in its natural color resembles the sapwood of yellow birch. The annual rings are defined by narrow bands of dense summerwood. The pores are small and diffused through the entire ring, as with birch. Medullary rays are very thin and do not show much figure; neither do the rings of growth, in tangential sawing, display much contrast. It is, therefore, a figureless wood, entering into practically all grades of furniture, in the region where alder is plentiful, but it shows to particularly good advantage in panels.

Reports on wood-utilization on the Pacific coast list this wood for archery bows but particulars as to amount used, and why it is used at all, are not given. The physical properties of the wood do not seem to fit it for that use. It is wanting in both strength and elasticity which are the prime, almost the only, factors considered in selecting bow wood. No account has been found of any employment of alder for bows by Indians of the region where it grows.

Broom handle turners in Washington use 350,000 feet of alder a year. The smooth finish which may be imparted to the wood constitutes its chief value for broom handles. It is well liked for porch columns. When the center is bored out, the wood seldom checks. In that respect it resembles yellow poplar. It takes paint well and holds it a long time. Comparatively large amounts are converted into interior finish. It is made into spindles, newel posts, railing, panels, molding, ornaments, and pedestals. Occasionally it is finished in the wood’s natural color.

Many minor places are found for red alder. Frames of pack saddles are made of it; it forms parts of pulleys; is available for small turnery; and it is sometimes worked into bodies and compartments for business wagons, such as butchers and bakers use. The bark is rich in tannin and is said to be employed in local tanneries, but no statistics are available showing the annual supply.

WHITE ALDER (Alnus rhombifolia) is known simply as alder in the region where it grows. Where this tree and red alder occupy the same range they are commonly supposed to be the same. The range of white alder extends from northern Idaho to southern California. It is the common alder of central California where it attains its best development, and the only alder at low altitudes in southern California. Trees vary in height from thirty to eighty feet, and in diameter from one to three. A common size is fifty feet high and fifteen inches in diameter. Like most alders, it sticks close to water courses, and is usually found in the bottoms of gulches where water flows most of the year. The flowers begin to appear in midsummer as dark, olive-brown catkins less than an inch in length. By midwinter they are fully developed, and the tree is loaded with catkins from four to six inches long and thick as lead pencils. In the gulches among the elevated foothills it is not unusual for trees to be bending beneath snow and flowers at the same time. That is about the period when the seeds of the preceding year complete their dispersal. The cones hang closed nearly a whole twelve months, and when they give up their seeds, they often do it slowly. The seeds are the size of pin heads, and seem to have had wings once, but lost them. The remnants remain, but are of no use. If running water does not carry seeds to new grounds they lie beneath the parent tree. The wood of white alder is five pounds lighter per cubic foot than red alder. Its structure is less satisfactory. Medullary rays are irregular, some being thin as those of sweet birch, while others are as broad as rays of chestnut oak. Those of large size seem to be scattered at haphazard, and are so irregular and uncertain that no dependence can be placed in them for figure. Trees are largely sapwood, which is nearly white when freshly cut, but it quickly turns brown; heartwood is pale, yellowish-brown. This is said to be one of most quickly-decaying woods of the western forests when logs are left lying in damp woods. The white alder ought to be suitable for nearly every purpose for which red alder is used.

MOUNTAIN ALDER (Alnus tenuifolia) is too small to contribute much to the lumber supply of the country, though it may yield fuel in some localities where there is little else. Its range extends from Yukon territory to Lower California, a distance of 4,000 miles, and it nearly touches both the torrid and frigid zones. It is found from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific in the United States. Few trunks exceed twenty-five feet in height or six inches in diameter; but the form is generally brush, in tangled thickets along the courses of mountain streams, and on boggy slopes, up to 7,000 feet in altitude. The wood is light brown, and there are no reports showing its use for any purpose except firewood.

SITKA ALDER (Alnus sitchensis) is one of the smallest of the arborescent species, and in most instances it is a shrub a few feet high. At its best it is thirty feet high and eight inches in diameter. It grows from Alaska to Oregon, and eastward to Alberta and Montana. It is found in mountain regions 4,000 feet above the sea. The wood is valuable for fuel only. This species was discovered about eighty years ago, but was practically lost sight of until recently. Many persons saw it but supposed it to be one of the other alders.

LANCELEAF ALDER (Alnus acuminata) is a southwestern species, ranging through southern New Mexico and southern Arizona and south 4,000 miles to Peru. In the United States it ascends to altitudes of 4,000 or 6,000 feet where it fringes the banks of streams, and flourishes in the bottoms of canyons. The largest trees are thirty feet high and eight inches in diameter. Flowers open in February before the appearance of the leaves. The seeds have small wings which are of little or no use.

SEASIDE ALDER (Alnus maritima) grows in Maryland, Delaware, and Oklahoma, and the largest trunks are thirty feet high and five inches in diameter. It is found on the banks of ponds and streams. The flowers appear in July, and the seeds of last year’s crop ripen at the same time. The wood is light, soft, and brown, heart and sap being scarcely distinguishable. The wood is not used.

The European Alder (Alnus glutinosa) has been naturalized in a few places in the United States, and several varieties are distinguished in cultivation. A native shrubby species (Alnus rugosa) is common in many parts of the eastern states. It is not usually listed as a tree, being too small, but it is sometimes twenty-five feet high and three or four inches in diameter. In Europe the charcoal made from alder is considered excellent material for the manufacture of gun powder, and considerable areas of alder in England are held in reserve against an emergency. It is probable that the American alders would answer as well as the European species.

HORNBEAM

HORNBEAM

(Ostrya Virginiana)

This tree belongs to the birch family and is closely related to the alders and to blue beech. Four species of hornbeam are known in the world, and two of them are in the United States. One is well known to most persons who are familiar with eastern hardwood forests, but the other is seldom seen because of the limited extent of its range.

The well-known hornbeam is found in the valley of the St. Lawrence river, throughout Nova Scotia and Ottawa, along the northern shore of Lake Huron to northern Minnesota, south through the northern states and along the Alleghany mountains to the Chattahoochee region of western Florida; through eastern Iowa, southeastern Missouri and Arkansas, eastern Kansas, Oklahoma and the Trinity river region of Texas. It is known as ironwood, hop-hornbeam, leverwood, and hardhack.

The Indians were small users of wood except for fuel, but they had places where they put wood to special uses. They chose hornbeam, when they could get it, for one of these places. It was a favorite material for the handles of their stone warclubs. The stone heads were chipped to various forms, but were usually egg-shaped with a groove round the middle for fixing the handle. This was made fast with thongs of rawhide, and was generally nearly or quite two feet long, and slender as a golf stick. Great strength and a high degree of elasticity were required to stand the strain when a warrior swung his club in battle. Hornbeam meets these requirements exactly, and doubtless the Indian found this out by experience. It is about thirty per cent stronger than white oak, and forty-six per cent more elastic. The demand for warclub handles made no great inroads on the hornbeam supply, but it affords proof that the Indians sometimes used good judgment.

The different names of this tree describe some characteristic of the wood or foliage. The fruit resembles hops, hence one of the names. Hardness gives it the other names by which it is known. It is the custom nearly everywhere to call any wood ironwood if it is extra hard. No fewer than eleven species of the United States are known as ironwood in some parts of their ranges.

The leaves of hornbeam are simple and alternate; they taper to a sharp point at the end, while the base is rounded. They are doubly and sharply serrate. In color they are dark green above, and lighter below, tufted in places, resembling birch leaves in some respects, although they are quite different in texture, the leaves of birch being glossy, while those of ironwood are rough. They are joined to the twig with a short petiole, hardly a fourth of an inch in length.

The flowers grow in long catkins, staminate ones sometimes more than two inches long, covered with fringed scales. The pistillate catkins are usually shorter. Hornbeam blooms in April and May and its fruit ripens in August and September. The seed is a small nut equipped with balloon-like wings, intended for wind distribution. The seeds are often carried, rolled, and tumbled considerable distances. They keep on going until their wings are torn off or wear out, or until they become inextricably entangled among twigs or other obstacles. Comparatively few of the seeds ever find lodgment in situations suitable for germination. Consequently, hornbeam is scarce.