Part 22

Ulmus montana

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Ulmus montana]

A medium-sized tree, 50 to 60 feet high. The bark is smooth and green. The branches are spreading and somewhat drooping. The buds are not downy like those of the slippery elm.

The Scotch elm, like the English elm, is extensively cultivated in the parks and gardens about Boston, and it is frequently planted along roadsides. It is less upright and tall than the English elm, its average height being about forty feet, and it has a more spreading head.

The Scotch elm, according to Gerard, had various uses in ancient times. Its wood was made into bows, and its bark, which is so tough that it will strip or peel off from the wood from one end of a bough to the other without breaking, was made into ropes. Its wood was not considered so good for naves as that of the English elm, though in Scotland it is used by ship-builders, the block and pump maker, the cartwright and cabinet maker. Loudon says in his “Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum”: “In many parts of the country, the wych elm, or witch-hazel, as it is still occasionally called, is considered a preservative against witches; probably from the coincidence, between the words ‘wych’ and ‘witch.’ In some of the midland counties, even to the present day, a little cavity is made in the churn to receive a small portion of witch-hazel, without which the dairymaids imagine that they would not be able to get the butter to come.”

The specific name, montana, from the Latin word meaning living on mountains, was given to this tree because it is found growing, not only in the plains and valleys, like Ulmus campestris, but also in the remote highlands where it finds a foothold and flourishes on the steep slopes of the mountains.

Celtis occidentalis]

A small tree, 20 to 50 feet high, with slender, wide-spreading branches. The terminal buds are lacking, the lateral ones are flattened and pointed and somewhat hairy. The twigs are dark grayish brown with white chambered pith inside the stems. The leaf-scars are semi-oval with three bundle-scars and alternate in arrangement. The fruit is reddish, turning dark purple; it is round and berry-like and about the size of a currant.

Celtis occidentalis

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The hackberry grows wild in Massachusetts, but it is found rarely and is generally mistaken for an elm. It grows commonly in lowland woods in Western New York and the Middle States, and it can be identified both in winter and summer by the white chambered pith, which is found by cutting a stem of recent growth. The dried fruit, which hangs on the stems through the winter, is also another means of recognizing the tree,—this berry-like fruit can be seen in the photograph which I took as late in the deciduous season as April thirteenth. It is a round-headed tree with a short trunk and usually a broad spread of branches, but in the basin of the Ohio River it grows to be a tall and stately tree.

The wood is heavy and coarsely grained, and is used for fences and for making cheap furniture.

The generic name, Celtis, is the ancient Greek name for the lotus berry; and the specific name, occidentalis (belonging to the west), designates its American origin.

CHAPTER IX

THE BUTTONWOOD, THE TUPELO, AND THE MULBERRIES

Chapter IX

THE BUTTONWOOD, THE TUPELO, AND THE MULBERRIES

Families Platanaceæ, Cornaceæ, and Moracæ

There is but one genus in the family Platanaceæ, and but one species in the genus found growing in the Northeastern States, the buttonwood, or sycamore.

Platanus occidentalis]

A large tree, 80 to 100 feet high, with an irregular, picturesque outline. The bark breaks off in thin, brittle plates at the base of the trunk, and higher up it is smooth, an olive green color, and covered with white blotches. The buds are subpetiolar,—that is, they are covered over by the base of the leafstalk through the summer, and concealed entirely until the leaf drops off. The leaf-scar is in the shape of a ring around the bud, with prominent bundle-scars; the arrangement of the leaf-scars is alternate. Stipule scars are found on the stems in some places. The buds are conical, smooth, and brown, and are covered by one scale. The fruit hangs on the tree all winter,—a large, dry ball made up of hundreds of seeds.

Like everything which has a definite individuality, the buttonwood is a tree which people either like or dislike strongly. It is certainly picturesque, and its subpetiolar buds alone make it unusually interesting, whether one admires it or not from an æsthetic point of view. These buds are entirely concealed through the summer by the hollow bases of the leafstalks which fit over the buds like candle extinguishers, and leave scars in circles after they have fallen.

Its bark has little expansive power, the tissue is rigid and cannot stretch with the growing power from within, and it splits and is thrown off easily. In connection with this, Dr. Holmes says in “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table”:—

Platanus occidentalis

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“The buttonwood throws off its bark in large flakes, which one may find lying at its foot, pushed out, and at last pushed off, by that tranquil movement from beneath, which is too slow to be seen, but too powerful to be arrested. One finds them always, but one rarely sees them fall. So it is our youth drops from us—scales off, sapless and lifeless, and lays bare the tender and immature fresh growth of old age.”