Part 42

=Habit.=--Usually a medium-sized tree, 30-50 feet in height, with a trunk diameter varying from 8 or 10 inches to 2 feet; attaining much greater dimensions in the middle and southern states; branches few, large, often tortuous, subdividing irregularly; head open, widest near the base, rather ungraceful when naked, but very attractive when clothed with bright green, polished foliage, profusely decked with white flowers, or laden with drooping racemes of handsome black fruit.

=Bark.=--Bark of trunk deep reddish-brown and smooth in young trees, in old trees very rough, separating into close, thick, irregular, blackish scales; branches dark reddish-brown, marked with small oblong, raised dots. Bitter to the taste.

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds ovate, 1/8 inch long, covered with imbricated brown scales.

Leaves 2-5 inches long, about half as wide, dark green above and glossy when full grown, paler below, turning in autumn to orange, deep red, or pale yellow, firm, smooth on both sides, elliptical, oblong, or lanceolate-oblong; finely serrate with short, incurved teeth; apex sharp; base acute or roundish; meshes of veins minute; petioles 1/2 inch long, with usually two or more glands near the base of the leaf; stipules glandular-edged, falling as the leaf expands.

=Inflorescence.=--May to June. From new leafy shoots, in simple, loose racemes, 4-5 inches long; flowers small; calyx with 5 short teeth separated by shallow sinuses, persistent after the cherry falls; petals 5, spreading, white, obovate; stamens numerous; pistil one; style single.

=Fruit.=--September. Somewhat flattened vertically, 1/4 inch in diameter; purplish-black, edible, slightly bitter.

=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy in New England; in rich soil in open situations young trees grow very rapidly, old trees rather slowly. Seldom used for ornamental purposes, but serves well as a nurse tree for forest plantations, or where quick results and a luxurious foliage effect is desired, on inland exposures or near the seacoast. The branches are very liable to disfigurement by the black-knot and the foliage by the tent-caterpillar. Large plants are seldom for sale, but seedlings may be obtained in large quantities and at low prices. A weeping horticultural form is occasionally offered. Propagated from seed.

1. Winter buds. 2. Flowering branch. 3. Flower with part of perianth and stamens removed. 4. A petal. 5. Fruiting branch. 6. Mature leaf.

=Prunus Avium, L.=

MAZARD CHERRY.

Introduced from England; occasionally spontaneous along fences and the borders of woodlands. As an escape, 25-50 feet high, with a trunk diameter of 1-2 feet; head oblong or ovate; branches mostly ascending. Leaves ovate to obovate, more or less pubescent beneath, serrate, 3-5 inches long; leafstalk about 1/2 inch long, often glandular near base of leaf; inflorescence in umbels; flowers white, expanding with the leaves; fruit dark red, sweet, mostly inferior or blighted.

LEGUMINOSAE. PULSE FAMILY.

=Gleditsia triacanthos, L.=

HONEY LOCUST. THREE-THORNED ACACIA.

=Habitat and Range.=--In its native habitat growing in a variety of soils; rich woods, mountain sides, sterile plains.

Southern Ontario.

Maine,--young trees in the southern sections said to have been produced from self-sown seed (M. L. Fernald); New Hampshire and Vermont,--introduced; Massachusetts,--occasional; Rhode Island,--introduced and fully at home (J. F. Collins); Connecticut,--not reported. Probably sparingly naturalized in many other places in New England.

Spreading by seed southward; indigenous along the western slopes of the Alleghanies in Pennsylvania; south to Georgia and Alabama; west from western New York through southern Ontario (Canada) and Michigan to Nebraska, Kansas, Indian territory, and Texas.

=Habit.=--A medium-sized tree, reaching a height of 40-60 feet and a trunk diameter of 1-3 feet; becoming a tree of the first magnitude in the river bottoms of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee; trunk dark and straight, the upper branches going off at an acute angle, the lower often horizontal, both trunk and larger branches armed above the axils with stout, sharp-pointed, simple, three-pronged or numerously branched thorns, sometimes clustered in forbidding tangles a foot or two in length; head wide-spreading, very open, rounded or flattish, with extremely delicate, fern-like foliage lying in graceful planes or masses; pods flat and pendent, conspicuous in autumn.

=Bark.=--Trunk and larger branches a sombre iron gray, deepening on old trees almost to black; yellowish-brown in second year's growth; season's shoots green, marked with short buff, longitudinal lines; branchlets rough-dotted.

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Winter buds minute, in clusters of three or four, the upper the largest. Leaves compound, once to twice pinnate, both forms often in the same leaf, alternate, 6 inches to 1 foot long, rachis abruptly enlarged at base and covering the winter buds: leaflets 18-28, 3/4-1-1/4 inches long, about one-third as wide, yellowish-green when unfolding, turning to dark green above, slightly lighter beneath, yellow in autumn; outline lanceolate, oblong to oval, obscurely crenulate-serrate; apex obtuse, scarcely mucronate; base mostly rounded; leafstalks and leaves downy, especially when young.

=Inflorescence.=--Early June. From lateral or terminal buds on the old wood, in slender, pendent, greenish racemes scarcely distinguishable among the young leaves; sterile and fertile flowers on different trees or on the same tree and even in the same cluster; calyx somewhat campanulate, 3-5-cleft; petals 3-5, somewhat wider than the sepals, and inserted with the 3-10 stamens on the calyx: pistil in sterile flowers abortive or wanting, conspicuous in the fertile flowers. Parts of the flower more or less pubescent, arachnoid-pubescent within, near the base.

=Fruit.=--Pods dull red, 1-1-1/2 feet long, flat, pendent, and often twisted, containing several flat brown seeds.

=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England, grows in any well-drained soil, but prefers a deep, rich loam; transplants readily, grows rapidly, is long-lived, free from disease, and makes a picturesque object in ornamental plantations, but is objectionable in public places and highly finished grounds on account of the stiff spines, which are a source of danger to pedestrians, and also on account of the long strap-shaped pods, which litter the ground. There is a thornless form which is better adapted than the type for ornamental purposes. The type is sometimes offered in nurseries at a low price by the quantity. Propagated from seed.

1. Winter buds. 2. Winter buds with thorns. 3. Flowering branch. 4. Sterile flower, enlarged. 5. Flowering branch, flowers mostly fertile. 6. Fertile flower, enlarged. 7. Fruiting branch. 8. Leaf partially twice pinnate.

=Robinia Pseudacacia, L.=

LOCUST.

=Habitat and Range.=--In its native habitat growing upon mountain slopes, along the borders of forests, in rich soils.