Part 51

SMALL BUCKEYE (_Æsculus austrina_) is one of the latest recognized members of the buckeye household. It seldom attains a diameter above five or six inches, or a height of twenty-five feet. It is, therefore, too small to be seriously considered as a source of lumber, and even if trunks were large enough, the species is too scarce to furnish many logs. It grows on rich uplands from western Tennessee and southern Missouri to Texas. The bright red flowers open in April, the fruit falls in October.

PURPLE BUCKEYE (_Æsculus octandra hybrida_) is a variety characterized by red or purple flowers and by leaves woolly on the under sides, and bark of lighter color than that of yellow buckeye. The range follows the Appalachian mountains from West Virginia southward. It has been reported in Texas also. If the wood is used at all, it goes for the same purposes as yellow buckeye.

[Illustration]

SASSAFRAS

[Illustration: SASSAFRAS]

SASSAFRAS

(_Sassafras Sassafras_)

The French settlers in Florida were the first white men to give the name sassafras to this tree, but the Indians called it by that name long before. It was a tree which Indians were sure to name, because it had an individuality which appealed to them. It is not known what the real meaning of the word was, when the southern Indians used it. After the French adopted the name in Florida, it passed to other colonies and other languages, and has led to numerous disputes since. Many have erroneously supposed that the name is of Latin origin. When the English colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, the tree was well known by that name, but it was pronounced so variously and spelled in so many ways that it was often almost unrecognizable. It is pronounced variously and spelled differently yet. It is called sassafras in most regions, and in others is saxifrax, sassafas, sassafac, sassafrac, and saxifrax tree.

Its range covers the territory from Massachusetts to Iowa and Kansas, and south to Florida and Texas. Some of that range it has occupied for vast periods of time, for sassafras leaves have been found embedded in the Cretaceous formations of Long Island. Near the northern limit of its range it is generally small, often of brush size; but further south it becomes a tree which sometimes exceeds 100 feet in height, and three or four in diameter. The best development of the species is in Arkansas and Missouri.

Sassafras belongs to the laurel family. Strangely enough, the two trees which are usually supposed to be typical laurels--namely, mountain laurel (_Kalmia latifolia_) and great rhododendron, do not belong to the laurel family, but the heath family. The laurel family to which sassafras belongs includes many species in all parts of the world, some are evergreen, others are not, but all characterized by the strong, pungent odor of their wood or bark, and all having fruit with a single seed like a plum or cherry. The camphor tree from the distillation of whose wood commercial camphor (except synthetic camphor made largely from turpentine) is derived, belongs to this family, as do certain bay trees of the southern states. It was formerly supposed that sassafras existed only in the eastern half of the United States; but a species closely resembling ours, if not identical with it, has recently been found in China. The California laurel (_Umbellularia californica_) is in the same family with sassafras.

This tree has had a peculiar history. It was once supposed to possess miraculous healing powers, and was shipped from Virginia to England in one of the first cargoes to go to that country from the present territory of the United States. Its supposed value did not consist in its use as lumber, but in some medicinal property which it was reputed to possess. People appeared to believe that it would renew the youth of the human race. Some portion of this superstition has clung round sassafras to this day, and it is not entirely confined to ignorant people. Bedsteads made of sassafras were supposed to drive away certain nightly visitors which disturb slumber. In southeastern Arkansas and northwestern Mississippi, bedsteads are still made of this wood, with the belief that sleep will be sounder. The same custom doubtless prevails elsewhere. In northern Louisiana floors of sassafras are occasionally laid in negro cabins because of the same superstition, and in the firm belief that it will keep out animals as large as rats and mice. Some of the mountaineers of Kentucky, where each family makes its own soap, insist that the kettle must be stirred with a sassafras stick or it will produce a poor quality of soap. Among the mountains of West Virginia many a farmer equips his henhouse with sassafras poles for roosts, fully convinced that he has put an effective quietus on all tribes, shoals, and kindred of _menopon pallidum_, and the hens will sleep better.

The production of sassafras oil is perhaps the largest industry dependent upon this tree. Roots are grubbed by the ton and are subjected to destructive distillation. Much of this work is carried on in Virginia where sassafras spreads quickly into abandoned fields, springing up from seeds carried by birds. Veritable thickets soon take possession. Here is where the sassafras oil supply comes from. Contractors often clear the old fields and make them ready for tillage, taking the roots for pay.

The wood weighs 31.42 pounds per cubic foot; is very durable when exposed to dampness; is slightly aromatic; inclined to check in drying; the layers of annual growth are marked by rings of large pores; summerwood is quite distinct from the earlier growth; medullary rays are many and thin; color dull orange-brown, the thin sapwood light yellow.

Sassafras goes to sawmills in all regions where it is large enough for lumber, but the total cut is small. Reports from sawmills in 1909 credited this species with only 25,000 feet in the United States, and it was still less in 1910. It is evident that this is only a small portion of the total output, and probably Tennessee alone produces that much. The wood is sold with other species and loses its name, frequently passing as ash. The wood bears considerable resemblance to ash, in grain and color, but is lighter in weight, and much lower in strength.

Sassafras was one of the canoe woods of early times along the lower Mississippi and its tributaries. Its two principal advantages over most woods with which it was associated was its light weight and lasting qualities. Canoes of this timber in Louisiana have given continued service for a third of a century.

In all parts of its range, wherever it is of sufficient size, it has been used for posts. It is generally considered good for about twenty years. Large trunks were formerly split for rails, and a few are utilized in that way still, but most timber large enough for rails, now goes to sawmills. In Texas most of the sassafras supplied by sawmills is manufactured into furniture, but is listed as ash. The same thing is done in Arkansas and Missouri, but the use in the latter state is extended to interior house finish and office and bank fixtures. Sometimes it is made the outside wood, and the figure caused by sawing the logs tangentially is accentuated by stains and fillers. The figure of quarter-sawed wood is not attractive because the medullary rays are too small. It lasts well as railroad ties and a few are found in service in many parts of the tree’s range, but those who see it in the track are liable to mistake it for chestnut.

A by-product of sassafras deserves mention--tea made from the flowers or from the bark of the roots. It is relished in the early spring, and is popular in most regions where the tree is known. The bark is a commercial commodity. It is tied in small bundles, and the price at retail ranges from a nickel to a dime each. Drug stores and grocers sell it. In the city of Washington in early spring sassafras peddlers canvas the city from center to circumference. They are generally negro men and women who dig the roots on the neighboring hills of Virginia and Maryland, strip the bark, tie it in small bundles, and by diligence and perseverance, succeed in converting the merchandise into money.

Sassafras is often cited as an example of a tree with leaves of different forms. Three shapes are common, and all frequently occur on the same tree, and even on the same twig. One has no lobes, another has one lobe like the thumb of a mitten, and another has three.

LANCEWOOD (_Ocotea catesbyana_) is a small evergreen tree, looks much like laurel, and grows in southern Florida, on the islands and on the mainland in the vicinity of Biscayne bay. It is closely related to sassafras, and the bark has an aromatic odor. It belongs to a group of trees with nearly 200 species scattered in hot regions of both hemispheres. This is the only one belonging to the United States, and it appears to be a newcomer on these shores, from the fact that it has succeeded in obtaining so limited a foothold. It keeps well south of the region where it is likely to be frosted and it seldom exceeds a height of thirty feet and a diameter of eighteen inches. The fruit ripens in autumn and is dark blue with flesh thin and dry. The wood is hard, heavy, strong, checks badly in drying, and has a rich brown color, the sapwood being yellow. Rings of annual growth are marked with many small, regularly-distributed open ducts; medullary rays are thin and numerous; wood weighs 47.94 pounds per cubic foot; durable in contact with the soil, beautifully colored, and is highly prized for small cabinet work and novelties. At Miami, Florida, small trunks cut on neighboring hummocks, or brought from the keys, are worked into souvenirs to be sold to visitors. Lancewood fishing rods are among the strongest and most expensive on the market; but little of the material of which they are made grows in Florida. It is also manufactured into billiard cues and small handles.

[Illustration]

MADRONA

[Illustration: MADRONA]

MADRONA

(_Arbutus Menziesii_)

Madrona is an interesting tree which ranges from British Columbia southward to central California, attaining its greatest development in the redwood forests of northern California, where trees are sometimes one hundred feet high and six or seven feet in diameter. It is not only an interesting tree itself, but it has many interesting relatives, some of which are trees, others shrubs, and still others only small plants or vines. It may be called a second cousin to the common huckleberry, the mountain laurel, trailing arbutus, the azaleas, the tiny wintergreen, and the great rhododendron. It has some poor relations, but many that are highly respectable. It belongs to the heath family, of which there are seventy genera, and more than a thousand species; but less than half of them are in America, the others being scattered widely over the world.

The madrona, when at its best, is one of the largest members of the family; but it is not always at its best. It sometimes degenerates into a sprawling shrub, where it grows on poor ground and on cold, dry mountain tops. It is manifestly not fair to study any tree at its worst, and it is particularly not fair to the madrona, which varies so greatly in its appearance. At one place it may be scarcely large enough to shade the lair of a jackrabbit, and at another it spreads its branches wide enough to shade an army--a small army, however, say, about two thousand men. A tree of that size may be found within a few hours’ ride of San Francisco. Its branches cover an area of from eight thousand to ten thousand square feet.

When madrona grows in the open it throws out wide limbs like a southern live oak, though not so large or long. Its crown is rounded and graceful; but when it grows in forests, where other trees crowd it, the trunk rises straight up to lift the crown into the sunlight and fresh air. The madrona is seen in all its glory in northwestern California, where it catches some of the warmth and the moist air from the Pacific. It follows the ranges of the Siskiyou mountains eastward near the boundary of California and Oregon. It is usually mixed with other forest trees, but sometimes large stands nearly pure are encountered, and there the long trunks, rather gray near the ground, but wine-colored above, rise in imposing beauty and are lost in the evergreen crowns.

The leaves suggest those of laurel, but are broader. The large clusters of white flowers are among the glories of the vegetable kingdom. George B. Sudworth, dendrologist of the United States Forest Service, who usually describes in strictly prosaic terms, breaks away from that habit long enough to compare madrona flowers to lilies of the valley, in his “Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope.” The flowers appear from March to May, depending on latitude and elevation.

The brilliant orange-red fruit ripens in the fall, and is often borne in great abundance. It renders the crowns of the trees very beautiful. The fruit is about half an inch long and contains many small angular seeds. The fruit is said to contain a substance which puts to sleep wild creatures that feed on it. The claim is probably mythical, for birds breakfast extravagantly on it in the morning, and apparently do not do any sleeping until after sunset.

This tree was discovered by and named for Archibald Menzies, a Scotch botanist who traveled in the Northwest more than a hundred years ago. It has several local names, among them being madrove, laurel wood, madrone-tree, laurel, and manzanita. The last is the proper name of another small tree which is associated with madrona and is closely related to it.

The wood weighs 43.95 pounds per cubic foot. It is a little below eastern white oak in fuel value, a little above it in strength, and somewhat under it in stiffness. The color is pale reddish-brown, resembling applewood in tone, but generally not quite so dark. The wood is porous, but the pores are very small. Medullary rays are numerous but thin. On account of the rays being of a little deeper red than the other wood, quarter-sawed stock is handsome and of somewhat peculiar appearance. The figure is much like quarter-sawed beech, but of deeper, more handsome color. The contrast between springwood and summerwood is not strong, though easily seen. Generally, the summerwood constitutes about one-fourth of the annual ring. The tree grows slowly, but with much irregularity. The increase in one season may be four or five times as great as in another. The bark exfoliates, and is quite thin.

Madrona has never been put to much use. Difficulties in seasoning it have stood in the way. The wood warps and checks. Similar difficulties with other woods have been overcome, and such troubles should not be unduly discouraging. The beauty of the wood is unquestioned. It presents a fine appearance when worked into furniture, particularly in small panels and turned work, like spindles, knobs, and small posts. When made into grills it shows a surprising richness of tone. The wood polishes almost to the smoothness of holly. Small quantities are made into flooring; a little goes to the furniture makers; lathes turn some of it for novelties and souvenirs; fuel cutters sell it as cordwood; and tanbark peelers cut the trees for the thin, papery bark. In that case the trunks are left to decay, unless they happen to be convenient to a cordwood market.

One of the most extensive uses for the wood of madrona is for charcoal burning. Blacksmiths buy it because it is cheaper than coal, and some is used in shops where soldering and welding are done; but the most exacting demand comes from gunpowder manufacturers. They find this wood almost equal to alder and willow as a source of charcoal suitable for powder.

MEXICAN MADRONA (_Arbutus xalapensis_) might properly be called Texas madrona as it occurs in that state and probably in no other, but its range extends southward into Mexico. It produces a poorly shaped trunk seldom much more than twenty feet high and one foot in diameter, and usually divided into several branches near the ground. It blooms in March and ripens its fruit in midsummer. The tree is found on dry limestone hills, and in the valley of the Rio Blanco, and among the Eagle mountains. Cabinet makers in Texas put the wood to rather exacting uses after they have carefully seasoned it to overcome its natural tendency to check. It is very hard; its color is a little lighter than applewood which it resembles; annual rings are scarcely visible, so regular and even is the year’s growth. In Texas the wood is made into plane stocks, tool handles, and mathematical instruments.

ARIZONA MADRONA (_Arbutus arizonica_) has a restricted range on the Santa Catalina and Santa Rita mountains of southern Arizona, where it ascends to an altitude of 8,000 feet. The species extends southward into Mexico. The largest trees attain a height of fifty feet and a diameter of two. Trunks are usually straight and shapely, and show the thin, red bark common to the genus. The wood resembles that of the species in Texas, and doubtless is suited to the same purposes, but no utilization of it has been reported, except for fuel, and for fences and sheds on mountain ranches. When the region becomes more thickly settled, the value of the wood will be appreciated.

MANZANITA (_Arctostaphylos manzanita_) is not generally welcomed by botanists into the tree class. They say it is too small; but it is as large as some of the laurels which go as trees without question, and is shaped much like them. There are several species of manzanita. The word is Spanish and means “little apple.” The name is natural, for one of the most noticeable things about manzanita is the fruit, the size of well-grown huckleberries. It is shaped like an apple, and its tart taste suggests that fruit. The Digger Indians along the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California gather the berries by the sack, dry them, and keep them for winter--if they can. It is often impossible to keep them because, like other fruit, they are apt to become wormy. When the Indians discover them in that condition they display rare thrift and economy for savages, by soaking the fruit and pressing out the juice, which is said to pass for a pretty fair quality of cider, but it must be quickly consumed or it will mother and change to vinegar. Indians now put the berries to use less frequently than in early times when they were nearly always hungry.

Manzanita is of the same family as madrona. Its range extends along the mountains of the Pacific coast ranges from Oregon to Mexico, and inland to Utah. The largest trees are about twenty feet high and a foot or less in diameter; very much divided and branched, with limbs crooked in more ways, perhaps, than those of any other representative of the vegetable kingdom. Thousands of canes are cut from the branches, and if any living man ever saw a straight one he failed to report it. Manzanita grows in almost impenetrable thickets on dry slopes and ridges. Its thin foliage casts so pale a shadow that the tree’s shade is little cooler than the boiling sun upon the open naked ground and rocks. The bark is a reddish-chocolate color, and exfoliates in scales of papery thinness. The heart is nearly of the same color as the bark, but the sap is white and very thin. The wood is hard, strong, stiff, but exceedingly brittle. If a branch is sharply bent it will fly into splinters.

The uses of the wood are numerous, but the total quantity demanded is moderate. Novelty stores sell small articles to tourists in California, sometimes passing the wood off as mountain mahogany which does not so much as belong to the same family. The most common articles manufactured by novelty shops from manzanita are canes, paper weights, paper knives, rulers, spoons, napkin rings, curtain rings, cuff buttons, dominos, manicure sticks, jewel boxes, match safes, pin trays, and photo frames.

[Illustration]

COTTONWOOD

[Illustration: COTTONWOOD]

COTTONWOOD[9]

(_Populus Deltoides_)

[9] The following species grow in the United States: Cottonwood (_Populus deltoides_), Aspen (_Populus tremuloides_), Largetooth aspen (_Populus grandidentata_), Swamp Cottonwood (_Populus heterophylla_), Balm of Gilead (_Populus balsamifera_), Lanceleaf Cottonwood (_Populus acuminata_), Narrowleaf Cottonwood (_Populus angustifolia_), Black Cottonwood (_Populus trichocarpa_), Fremont Cottonwood (_Populus fremontii_), Mexican Cottonwood (_Populus mexicana_), Texas Cottonwood (_Populus wislizeni_).

Eleven species of cottonwood are found in the United States, if all trees of the genus _Populus_ are classed as cottonwoods. It is not universally admitted, however, that they should be so classed. The common cottonwood is the most widely known of all of them, but it is recognized under different names in different regions, viz.: Big cottonwood, yellow cottonwood, cotton tree, Carolina poplar, necklace poplar, broadleaf poplar, and whitewood.

Its range covers practically all of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. It is rare or missing in eastern New England and southern Florida, and most abundant in the Mississippi valley, and there the largest trees are found. Some exceed 100 feet in height, and four in diameter. Extreme sizes of 140 feet in height with diameters of from seven to nine have been reported. The cottonwood was a frontier tree on the western plains when settlers began to push into the region. It grew as far west as any hardwood of the eastern forests, and was found beyond meridian 100, which was supposed to be the boundary between the region of rains and the semi-arid country. The cottonwood clung to the river banks and to islands in the rivers, and by that means escaped the Indian’s prairie and forest fires which he kindled every year to improve the range for the buffalo. It is supposed that most of the open country east of meridian 100 was originally timbered, and that the Indians destroyed the forests by their long-continued habit of burning the woods and prairies every year to improve the pasture. Cottonwood was the longest survivor, because it grew in damp places where fires did not burn fiercely. Black willow was its most frequent companion on the western outposts of the forests.

The cottonwood was fitted for holding its ground, and pushing forward. Its light seeds are carried by millions on the wind and by water. The tree bears large quantities of cotton (hence the name), and when the wind whips it from the tree, seeds are caught among the fibers and carried along, to be scattered miles away.

This tree was not much thought of by eastern people who had plenty of other kinds of wood, but pioneers on the plains who had a hard time to get any, found cottonwood useful. It made fences, corncribs, stables, cabins, ox yokes, and fuel. The first canoes made by white men on the upper Missouri river were of cottonwood. Lumber cut from this tree is inclined to warp and check unless carefully handled, and this prejudiced it in the eyes of many; but difficulties of that kind were easily mastered, and instead of being a neglected wood it became popular. Some of the largest early orders came from Germany. Vehicle makers in this country employed it for wagon beds, as a substitute for yellow poplar when that wood’s cost advanced. Manufacturers of agricultural implements were pioneers in its use, it being excellent material for hoppers, chutes, and boxes.