Part 43

Naturalized from Nova Scotia to Ontario.

Maine,--thoroughly at home, forming wooded banks along streams; New Hampshire,--abundant enough to be reckoned among the valuable timber trees; Vermont,--escaped from cultivation in many places; Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut,--common in patches and thickets and along the roadsides and fences.

Native from southern Pennsylvania along the mountains to Georgia; west to Iowa and southward.

=Habit.=--Mostly a small tree, 20-35 feet high, under favorable conditions reaching a height of 50-75 feet; trunk diameter 8 inches to 2 1/2 feet; lower branches thrown out horizontally or at a broad angle, forming a few-branched, spreading top, clothed with a tender green, delicate, tremulous foliage, and distinguished in early June by loose, pendulous clusters of white fragrant flowers.

=Bark.=--Bark of trunk dark, rough and seamy even in young trees, and armed with stout prickles which disappear as the tree matures; in old trees coarsely, deeply, and firmly ridged, not flaky; larger branches a dull brown, rough; branchlets grayish-brown, armed with prickles; season's shoots green, more or less rough-dotted, thin, and often striped.

=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Winter buds minute, partially sunken within the leaf-scar. Leaves pinnately compound, alternate; petiole swollen at the base, covering bud of the next season; often with spines in the place of stipules; leaflets 7-21, opposite or scattered, 3/4-1-1/4 inches long, about half as wide, light green; outline ovate or oval-oblong; apex round or obtuse, tipped with a minute point; base truncate, rounded, obtuse or acutish; distinctly short-stalked; stipellate at first.

=Inflorescence.=--Late May or early June. Showy and abundant, in loose, pendent, axillary racemes; calyx short, bell-shaped, 5-cleft, the two upper segments mostly coherent; corolla shaped like a pea blossom, the upper petal large, side petals obtuse and separate; style and stigma simple.

=Fruit.=--A smooth, dark brown, flat pod, about 3 inches long, containing several small brown flattish seeds, remaining on the tree throughout the winter.

=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy throughout New England in all dry, sunny situations, of rapid growth, spreading by underground stems, ordinarily short-lived and subject to serious injury by the attacks of borers. Occasionally procurable in large quantities at a low rate. In Europe there are many horticultural forms, a few of which are occasionally offered in American nurseries. The type is propagated from seed, the forms by grafting.

1. Winter buds. 2. Flowering branch. 3. Flower with corolla removed. 4. Fruiting branch.

=Robinia viscosa, Vent.=

CLAMMY LOCUST.

This tree appears to be sparingly established in southern Canada and at many points throughout New England.

Common in cultivation and occasionally established through the middle states; native from Virginia along the mountains of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Easily distinguished from R. Pseudacacia by its smaller size, glandular, viscid branchlets, later period of blossoming, and by its more compact, usually upright, scarcely fragrant, rose-colored flower-clusters.

SIMARUBACEAE. AILANTHUS FAMILY.

=Ailanthus glandulosus, Desf.=

AILANTHUS. TREE-OF-HEAVEN. CHINESE SUMAC.

Sparsely and locally naturalized in southern Ontario, New England, and southward.

A native of China; first introduced into the United States on an extensive scale in 1820 at Flushing, Long Island; afterwards disseminated by nursery plants and by seed distributed from the Agricultural Department at Washington. Its rapid growth, ability to withstand considerable variations in temperature, and its dark luxuriant foliage made it a great favorite for shade and ornament. It was planted extensively in Philadelphia and New York, and generally throughout the eastern sections of the country. When these trees began to fill the ground with suckers and the vile-scented sterile flowers poisoned the balmy air of June and the water in the cisterns, occasioning many distressing cases of nausea, a reaction set in and hundreds of trees were cut down. The female trees, against the blossoms of which no such objection lay, were allowed to grow, and have often attained a height of 50-75 feet, with a trunk diameter of 3-5 feet. The fruit is very beautiful, consisting of profuse clusters of delicate pinkish or greenish keys.

The tree is easily distinguished by its ill-scented compound leaves, often 2-3 feet long, by the numerous leaflets, sometimes exceeding 40, each ovate, or ovate-lanceolate, with one or two teeth near the base, by its vigorous growth from suckers, and in winter by the coarse, blunt shoots and conspicuous, heart-shaped leaf-scars.

ANACARDIACEAE. SUMAC FAMILY.

=Rhus typhina, L.=

Rhus hirta, Sudw.

STAGHORN SUMAC.

=Habitat and Range.=--In widely varying soils and localities; river banks, rocky slopes to an altitude of 2000 feet, cellar-holes and waste places generally, often forming copses.

From Nova Scotia to Lake Huron.

Common throughout New England.