A tall, narrow pyramid of sombre green, the European cypress is found in cemeteries in south Europe and everywhere, planted for ornament. This is the classic cypress, a conventional feature of Italian gardens, the evergreen most frequently mentioned in classical literature. Slow-growing and noted for its longevity, it was the symbol of immortality. It is hardy in the South-Atlantic and Pacific-Coast states, and is a favorite evergreen for hedges in the Southwest.
Three other members of the genus occur on mountain foothills—one in Arizona, two in California—all easily recognized by their scale-like leaves and button-like woody cones, which require two years to mature.
The genus chamaecyparis includes three American species, of tall, narrow pyramidal habit and flat leaf-spray like that of the arbor-vitae. Annual erect globular cones of few, woody scales, produce one to five seeds under each.
This white cedar is the swamp-loving variety of the Atlantic seaboard—its range stretches from Maine to Mississippi. The durability of its white wood gives it considerable importance as a lumber tree. It is particularly dependable when placed in contact with water and exposed to weather. Cedar shingles, fence posts, railroad ties, buckets, and other cooperage consume quantities each year. The trees are important ornamental evergreens, planted for their graceful spray and their dull blue-green leaves. Their maximum height is eighty feet.
The Lawson cypress lifts its splendid spire to a height of two hundred feet, on the coast mountains of Oregon and California, forming a nearly continuous forest belt twenty miles long, between Point Gregory and the mouth of the Coquille River. Spire-like, with short, horizontal branches, this species bears a leaf-spray of feathery lightness, bright green, from the multitude of minute paired leaf-scales, and adorned with the clustered pea-sized cones, which are blue-green and very pale until they ripen.
The wood of this giant cypress is used in house-finishing and in boat-building; for flooring, fencing, and for railroad ties.
The bald cypress is the one member of the cypress group that sheds its foliage each autumn, following the example of the tamarack. In the Far South, river swamps are often covered with a growth of these cypresses whose trunks are strangely swollen at the base, and often hollow. The flaring buttresses are prolonged into the main roots, which form humps that rise out of the water at some distance from the tree. These "cypress knees" are not yet explained, though authorities suspect that they have something to do with the aëration of the root system.
Inundated nine or ten months of the year, these cypress swamps are often dry the remaining time, and it is a surprise to Southerners to find these trees comfortable and beautiful in Northern parks. Cleveland and New York parks have splendid examples.
The leaves of the bald cypress are of two types. They are scale-like only on stems that bear the globular cones. On other shoots they form a flat spray, each leaf one-half to three-fourths of an inch long, pea-green in the Southern swamps, bright yellow-green on both sides in dry ground, turning orange-brown before they fall. The twigs that bear these two-ranked leaves are also deciduous, a unique distinction of this genus.
Cypress wood is soft, light brown, durable, and easily worked. Quantities of it are shipped north and used in the manufacture of doors and interior finishing of houses, for fencing, railroad ties, cooperage, and shingles.
The sign by which the junipers are most easily distinguished from other evergreens, is the juicy berries instead of cones. In some species these are red, but they are mostly blue or blue-black. Before they mature it is easy to see the stages by which the cone-scales thicken and coalesce, instead of hardening and remaining separate, as in the typical fruit of conifers.
Juniper leaves are of two types: scale-like in opposite pairs, pressed close to the twig, as in the cypresses; and stiff, spiny, usually channelled leaves, which stand out free from the twig in whorls of threes.
The wood is red, fragrant, durable, and light.
The dwarf juniper departs from the pyramidal pattern and forms a loose, open head above a short, stout trunk. The slender branchlets are clothed with boat-shaped leaves which spread nearly at right angles from the twigs in whorls of three. Each one is pointed and hollowed, dark green outside, snowy white inside, which is really the upper side of the leaf. It requires three years to mature the bright blue berries, and they hang on the tree two or three years longer. Each fruit contains two or three seeds, and these require three years to germinate.
It is plain to see that time is no object to this slow-growing dwarf juniper, found in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, covering vast stretches of waste land. From Greenland to Alaska it is found and south along the highlands into Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and California. Its hardiness gives it importance as a cover for waste land on seashores and for hedges and wind-breaks in any exposed situation. It is a tree reaching thirty feet in height on the limestone hills of southern Illinois. In other situations it is usually a sprawling shrubby thing, the cringing parent of a race of dwarf junipers, known in many and various horticultural forms.
The giant of its race is the Western juniper, one of the patriarchial trees of America, ranking in age with the sequoias. Never a tall tree, it yet attains a trunk diameter of ten feet, and an age that surely exceeds two thousand years. At elevations of seven to ten thousand feet this valiant red cedar is found clinging to the granite domes and bare glacial pavements where soil and moisture seem absolutely non-existent. Sunshine and thin air are abundant, however, and elbow room. Upon these commodities the tree subsists, crouching, stubbornly clinging, while a single root offers foothold, its gnarled branches picturesque and beautiful in their tufts of gray-green leaves. Avalanches have beheaded the oldest of these giants, but their denuded trunks throw out wisps of new foliage with each returning spring. When they succumb, their trunks last almost as long as the granite boulders among which they are cast by the wind or the ice-burden that tore them loose.
The stringy bark is woven into cloth and matting by the Indians, and the fine-grained, hard, red wood finds no better use than for the mountaineer's fencing and fuel.
The Eastern red cedar is a handsome, narrow pyramid in its youth, often becoming broad and irregular, or round-topped above a buttressed, twisted trunk, as it grows old. The scale-like leaves are four-ranked, blue-green when young, spreading, and sometimes three fourths of an inch long, on vigorous new shoots. The dark blue berries are covered with a pale bloom and have a resinous, sweet flesh. This juniper is familiar in abandoned farms and ragged fence-rows, becoming rusty brown in foliage to match the stringy red bark in winter time. The durable red wood is used for posts and railroad ties, for cedar chests and pencils. The tree is profitably planted by railroad companies, as cedar ties are unsurpassed. In cultivation the tree forms an interesting, symmetrical specimen, adapted to formal gardens. (See illustration, page 230.)
The red juniper, much more luxuriant than its close relative of the North, is the handsomest juniper in cultivation. Its pyramid is robbed of a rigid formal expression by the drooping of its fern-like leaf-spray. The berries are silvery white and abundant. The wood is used principally for pencils. This species grows in the Gulf states.
The notable characteristic of the small genus, larix, is that the narrow leaves are shed in the autumn. Here is a tall pyramidal conifer which is not evergreen. It bears an annual crop of small woody cones, held erect on the branches, and the leaves are borne in crowded clusters on short lateral spurs, except upon the terminal shoots, where the leaves are scattered remotely but follow the spiral plan. Larch wood is hard, heavy, resinous, and almost indestructible. The tall shafts are ideal for telegraph poles and posts.
The tamarack or American larch (see illustration, page 263) goes farther north than any other tree, except dwarf willows and birches. Above these stunted, broad-leaved trees pure forests of tamarack rise, covering Northern swamps from Newfoundland and Labrador to Hudson Bay and west across the Rocky Mountains, the trees dwindling in size as they approach the arctic tundras, the limit of tree growth. The wood of these bravest of all conifers is a God-send over vast territories where other supply of timber is wanting. The tough roots of the larch tree supply threads with which the Indian sews his birch canoe.
In cultivation the American species is too sparse of limb and foliage to compete with the more luxuriant European larch, yet it is often planted. Its fresh spring foliage is lightened by the pale yellow of the globular staminate flowers and warmed by the rosy tips of the cone flowers. In early autumn the plain, thin-scaled cones, erect and bright chestnut-brown, shed their small seeds while the yellow leaves are dropping, and the bare limbs carry the empty cones until the following year.
The Western larch is the finest tree in its genus, reaching six feet in trunk diameter and two hundred feet in height, in the Cascade forests from British Columbia to southern Oregon and across the ranges to western Montana. This tree has the unusual distinction of exceeding all conifers in the value of its wood, which is heavy, hard, strong, dense, durable, of a fine red that takes a brilliant polish. It is used for furniture and for the interior finish of houses. Quantities of it supply the demand for posts and railroad ties, in which use it lasts indefinitely, compared with other timber.
Palms are tropical plants related to lilies on one hand and grasses on the other. One hundred genera and about one thousand species compose a family in which tree forms rarely occur. A few genera grow wild in the warmest sections of this country, and exotics are familiar in cultivation, wherever they are hardy. The leaves are parallel-veined, fan-shaped, or feather-like, on long stalks that sheath the trunk, splitting with its growth. The flowers are lily-like, on the plan of three, and the fruits are clustered berries, or drupes.
Sago, tapioca, cocoanuts, and dates are foods derived from members of this wonderful family. The fibres of the leaves supply thread for weaving cloth and cordage to the natives of the tropics, where houses are built and furnished throughout from the native palms.
The royal palm, crowned with a rosette of feather-like leaves, each ten to twelve feet long, above the smooth, tall stems, is a favorite avenue tree in tropical cities. In Florida it grows wild in the extreme southwest, but is planted on the streets of Miami and Palm Beach. Its maximum height is one hundred feet.
In California the favorite avenue palm of this feather-leaved type is the Canary Island palm, whose stout trunk, covered with interlacing leaf-bases, wears a crown of plumes that reach fifteen feet in length and touch the ground with their drooping tips. Huge clusters of bright yellow, dry, olive-shaped berries ripen in midsummer.
The date palm of commerce, once confined to the tropical deserts of Asia Minor and North Africa, has been successfully established by the Government in hot, dry localities of the Southwest. Fruit equal to any grown in plantations of the Old World is marketed now from the Imperial and Coachella valleys in California, and from orchards near Phoenix, Arizona. Dry air and a summer temperature far above the hundred degree mark is necessary to insure the proper sugar content and flavor in these fruits, which are borne in huge clusters and ripen slowly, one by one.
Fan-shaped leaves plaited on the ends of long stalks that are usually spiny-edged are borne by the stocky Florida palmettos and the tall desert palm of California, planted widely in cities of the Southwest and in Europe. Several genera of this fan-leaved type are represented in palm gardens, and in the general horticulture of warm regions of this country.
Abies concolor, 257
Abies Fraseri, 253
Abies grandis, 256
Abies magnifica, 254
Abies nobilis, 256
Acacia dealbata, 187
Acacia Melanoxylon, 186
Acacia, Palo verde, 190
Acacias, The, 184-187
Acer circinatum, 197
Acer glabrum, 199
Acer macrophyllum, 197
Acer nigrum, 195
Acer Negundo, 199
Acer Pennsylvanicum, 198
Acer pseudo-platanus, 200
Acer rubrum, 195
Acer saccharinum, 196
Acer saccharum, 194
Acer spicatum, 198
Aesculus Californica, 68
Aesculus glabra, 67
Aesculus Hippocastanum, 65
Aesculus octandra, 67
"Ague tree", 131
Alder, Black, 91
Alder, Oregon, 93
Alder, Red, 93
Alder, Seaside, 92
Alders, The, 91-93
Alligator pear, 129
Almond, 152
Alnus glutinosa, 91
Alnus maritima, 92
Alnus Oregona, 93
Amelanchier alnifolia, 160
Amelanchier Canadensis, 159
American beech, 42
American elm, 210
American holly, 145
American hornbeam, 85
American larch, 278
American linden, 70
Annual rings, 12
Anona cherimolia, 171
Anona glabra, 170
Apples, The, 147-149
Arbor-vitaes, The, 268-270
Arboreta, xiv
Arbutus Menziesii, 121
Arnold arboretum, xiv
Ash, Black, 204
Ash, Blue, 206
Ash, European, 208
Ash, Green, 206
Ash, Oregon, 207
Ash, Red, 205
Ash, White, 202
Ashes, Mountain, 116-118
Ashes, The, 201-209
Asimina triloba, 168
Aspen, 78
Assam rubber tree, 166
Autumn leaves, 19
Avocado, 129
Bald cypress, 273
Balm of Gilead, 79
Balsam fir, 253
Balsam poplar, 79
"Banana tree, Wild", 169
Banyan tree, 166
Bark, xv, 23
Basket oak, 55
Basswood, Downy, 72
Basswood, White, 71
Basswoods, The, 68-74
Bay, Red, 129
Bay, Rose, 119
Bay, Swamp, 105
Bee tree, 71
Beech, American, 42
"Beech, Blue", 85
"Beech, Water", 85
"Beetle-wood", 86
Betula lenta, 90
Betula lutea, 89
Betula nigra, 90
Betula papyrifera, 88
Betula populifolia, 89
"Big-cone" pine, 240
Big shellbark, 38
Big Tree, 263
Birch, Canoe, 88
Birch, Cherry, 90
Birch, Paper, 88
Birch, Red, 90
Birch, River, 90
Birch, White, 89
Birch, Yellow, 89
Birches, The, 87-91
Bird cherry, 153
"Bird's-eye" maplewood, 15
Black acacia, 186
Black alder, 91
Black ash, 204
Black cherry, Wild, 153
Black cottonwood, 80
Black dwarf sumach, 140
Black gum, 96
Black haw, 115, 158
Black locust, 178
Black maple, 195
Black mulberry, 165
Black oak, 58
Black oak group, 58-65
Black poplar, 77
Black spruce, 248
Black walnut, 31
Blackwood-tree, 186
Blue ash, 206
"Blue beech", 85
Blue fir, 257
Blue spruce, 250
Box elder, 199
Buckeye, California, 68
Buckeye, Ohio, 67
Buckeye, Sweet, 67
Buds, 3, 23
Bur oak, 51
Burning bush, 136
Butternut, 30
Buttonwoods, The, 93-95
California walnut, 29
California white oak, 57
Cambium, 9, 21
Campbell's magnolia, 103
Camperdown elm, 216
Canada plum, 151
Canary island palm, 280
Canoe birch, 88
Canoe cedar, 269
Carica papaya, 169
Carolina poplar, 78
Carpinus Carolinianum, 85
Castanea dentata, 44
Castanea pumila, 44-46
Cedar, Canoe, 269
Cedar, Eastern red, 276
Cedar, Incense, 270
Cedar, Red, 269
Cedar, White, 272
Celtis Australis, 162
Celtis occidentalis, 161
Cercidium Torreyanum, 190
Cercis Canadensis, 182
Chamaecyparis Lawsoniana, 273
Chamaecyparis Thyoides, 272
Chemistry of trees, 5-8
Cherimoya, 171
Cherries, The, 152-155
Cherry birch, 90
Chestnut oak, 53
Chestnuts, The, 44-47
Chinquapin, 44-46
Chionanthus Virginica, 126
Chlorophyll, Breaking down of the, 18
Choke cherry, 154
Cladrastis lutea, 183
Clammy locust, 179
Cockspur thorn, 156
Coffee tree, Kentucky, 181
Colorado blue spruce, 250
Common lime, 72
Cone-bearing evergreens, 217-279
Conifers, 217-279
Coral-bean, 192
"Cork elm", 215
Cornel, 113
Cornus Florida, 111
Cornus mas, 113
Cornus Nuttallii, 113
Cotinus, 142
Cotton gum, 97
Cottonwood, 77
Cottonwood, Black, 80
Cottonwood, Lance-leaved, 80
Cottonwood, Mexican, 80
Cottonwood, Narrow-leaved, 80
Cottonwood, Swamp, 81
Crab, Prairie, 148
Crab, Wild, 148
Crataegus coccinea, 158
Crataegus Crus-galli, 156
Crataegus Douglasii, 158
Crataegus mollis, 157
Crataegus oxyacantha, 155
Crataegus pruinosa, 157
Cuban pine, 236
Cucumber tree, 107
Cucumber tree, Large-leaved, 106
Cupressus macrocarpa, 271
Cupressus sempervirens, 272
"Curly maplewood", 15
Custard-apple, 168, 170
Cypresses, The, 271-274
Date palm, 281
Digger pine, 239
Diospyros Virginiana, 172
Dogwood, European, 113
Dogwood, Flowering, 111
Dogwood, Jamaica, 190
Dogwood, Western, 113
Dogwoods, The, 111-114
Douglas spruce, 258
Downy basswood, 72
Dwarf juniper, 275
Dwarf maple, 199
Dwarf sumach, 140
Eastern arbor-vitae, 268
Eastern mountain ash, 116
Eastern red cedar, 276
Eastern service berry, 159
Ebony, Texas, 191
Elder, Box, 199
Elder-leaved mountain ash, 117
Elm, American, 210
Elm, Camperdown, 216
"Elm, Cork", 215
Elm, English, 215
Elm, Hickory, 214
Elm, Moose, 213
Elm, Mountain, 215
Elm, Red, 213
Elm, Rock, 214
Elm, Scotch, 216
Elm, Slippery, 213
Elm, Small-leaved, 215
Elm, White, 210
Elm, Winged, 215
Elm, Wych, 216
Elms, The, 210-216
"Encina", 64
Engelmann spruce, 250
English elm, 215
English hawthorn, 155
English walnut, 33
Euonymus atropurpureus, 136
European ash, 208
European cypress, 272
European dogwood, 113
European holly, 144
European mountain ash, 117
European nettle tree, 162
Evergreens, Cone-bearing, 217-279
Evergreens, Leaves of, 20
Fagus Americanus, 42
Fibres of wood, 13
Ficus aurea, 167
Ficus elasticus, 166
"Fiddleback" ash, 209
Figs, The, 165-167
Fir, Balsam, 253
Fir, Blue, 257
Fir, Noble, 256
Fir, Red, 254
Fir, Red (A. nobilis), 256
Fir, Silver, 257
Fir, White, 256
Fir, White (A. concolor), 257
Firs, The, 251-257
Flowering dogwood, 111
"Foxtail" pines, The, 229
Fraxinus Americana, 202
Fraxinus excelsior, 208
Fraxinus nigra, 204
Fraxinus Oregona, 207
Fraxinus ornus, 209
Fraxinus Pennsylvanica, 205
Fraxinus Pennsylvanica (lanceolata), 206
Fraxinus quadrangulata, 206
Frijolito, 192
Fringe tree, 126
Gerarde, 73
Gleditsia triacanthos, 180
Golden fig, 167
Grain of wood, 13
Gray pine, 238
Great laurel, 119
Great laurel magnolia, 104
Green ash, 206
"Grete Herball", 73
Gum, Cotton, 97
Gum, Sour or Black, 96
Gum, Sweet, 97
Gum trees, The, 95-100
Gymnocladus dioicus, 181
Gymnosperms, 217-279
Hackberries, The, 160-162
Hamamelis Virginiana, 134
"Hard-tack", 86
Haw, Black, 115, 158
Haw, Red, 157
Haw, Scarlet, 157-158
Hawthorns, The, 155-159
Hazel, Witch, 133
Heath family, 118
Hemlocks, The, 259-262
Hicoria alba, 40
Hicoria glabra, 41
Hicoria lacinata, 38
Hicoria ovata, 37
Hicoria Pecan, 38
Hickories, The, 36-41
Hickory elm, 214
Hollies, The, 143-146
Holly, American, 145
Holly, European, 144
Honey locust, 179
Honey pod, 188
Hop hornbeam, 86
Hornbeam, American, 85
Hornbeam, Hop, 86
Horse bean, 191
Horse-chestnut foliage, 17
Horse-chestnuts, The, 65-68
"Horse sugar", 125
Icthyomethia Piscipula, 190
Ilex aquifolium, 144
Ilex Opaca, 145
Ilex vomitoria, 145
Incense cedar, 270
"Iron oak", 52
"Ironwood," see also Hornbeam
Ironwood, Knowlton's, 87
Jack pine, 238
Jamaica dogwood, 190
Japanese persimmon, 175
Japanese walnut, 33
"Judas-tree", 183
Juglans, Californica, 29
Juglans cinerea, 30
Juglans cordiformis, 33
Juglans nigra, 31
Juglans regia, 33
Juglans rupestris, 29
Juglans Sieboldiana, 33
June-berry, 159
Junipers, The, 274-277
Juniperus Barbadensis, 277
Juniperus communis, 275
Juniperus occidentalis, 276
Juniperus Virginiana, 276
Kaki, 175
Kalm, Peter, xx
Kalmia latifolia, 120
Kentucky coffee tree, 181
Knob-cone pine, 240
Knowlton's ironwood, 87
Lance-leaved Cottonwood, 80
"Langues de femmes", 81
Larches, The, 277-279
Large-leaved cucumber tree, 106
Larix Americana, 278
Larix occidentalis, 279
Laurel family, 127-133
Laurel, Great, 119
Laurel, Mountain, 120
Laurel oak, 63