American Forest Trees Part 42

The wood has other uses. It has lately met demand from manufacturers of golf heads. Skewers are made of it in North Carolina, and billiard cues and mallets in Ma.s.sachusetts.

The heartwood is dark and shuttle makers and golfhead manufacturers will not have it. Until recently it was customary to throw it away, because no sale for it could be found. It is now known to be suitable for parquet flooring and for brush backs, and the demand for the heartwood is as reliable as for the sapwood. A little of the dark wood is cut in veneer and is employed in panel work, and other is used in turnery.

The seeds of persimmon furnished one of the early subst.i.tutes for coffee in backwoods settlements when the genuine article could not be obtained.

They were parched and pounded until sufficiently pulverized. During the Civil war many a confederate camp in the South was fragrant with the aroma of persimmon seed coffee, after the soldiers had added the fruit to their rations of cornbread.

MEXICAN PERSIMMON (_Diospyros texana_) grows in Texas and Mexico. It is most abundant in southern and western Texas, where it suits itself to different soils, is found on rich moist ground near the borders of prairies, and also in rocky canyons and dry mesas. The largest trees are fifty feet high and twenty inches in diameter, but trunks that large are not abundant. The tree differs from the eastern persimmon in that the sapwood is thinner, and the heartwood makes up a much greater proportion of the trunk; the uses are consequently different, since it is taken for its dark wood, the eastern tree for its light-colored sap. The fruit of the Mexican persimmon is little esteemed. It is small, black, and the thin layer of pulp between the skin and the seed is insipid. Until fully ripe it is exceedingly austere. The Mexicans in the Rio Grande valley make a dye of the persimmons and use it to color sheep skins. The fruit's supply of tannin probably contributes to the tanning as well as the dyeing of the sheep pelts. The wood is heavier than eastern persimmon, and has more than three fold more ashes in a cord of wood, amounting to about 160 pounds. The bark is thin and the trunk gnarled.

The dark color of the wood gives it the name black persimmon in Texas.

Mexicans call it chapote. Sargent p.r.o.nounces it the best American subst.i.tute for boxwood for engraving purposes, but it does not appear to be used outside of Texas. The wood is irregular in color, even in the same piece, being variegated with lighter and darker streaks, and cloudy effects. It ought to be fine brush-back material. It is worked into tool handles, lodge furniture, canes, rules, pen holders, picture frames, curtain rings, door k.n.o.bs, parasol handles, and maul sticks for artists.

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FLOWERING DOGWOOD

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLOWERING DOGWOOD]

FLOWERING DOGWOOD

(_Cornus Florida_)

The dogwood or cornel family is old but not numerous. It originated several hundred thousand years ago and spread over much of the world, but preferred the temperate lat.i.tudes. One species at least crossed the equator and established itself in the highlands of Peru. There are forty or fifty species in all, about one-third of them in the United States, but most are shrubs. Black gum and tupelo are members of the family, and are giants compared with the dogwoods. In Europe the tree is usually called cornel, and that has been made the family name. It is a very old word, coined by the Romans before the days of Caesar. They so named it because it was hard like horn (_cornus_ meaning horn in the Latin language). They used it as shafts of spears, and so common was that use that when a speaker referred to a spear he simply called it by the name of the wood of the handle or shaft, as when Virgil described a combat which was supposed to have occurred 800 years before the Christian era, and used the words: "Clogged in the wound the Italian _cornel_ stood."

The qualities of this wood which led to important uses among the Romans, have always made dogwood a valuable material. Civilized nations do not need it for spear shafts, but they have other demands which call for large amounts.

The flowering dogwood has other names in this country. It is generally known simply as dogwood, but it is called boxwood in Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Mississippi, Michigan, Kentucky, and Indiana; false box-dogwood in Kentucky; New England boxwood in Tennessee; flowering cornel in Rhode Island; and cornel in Texas.

Its range extends from Ma.s.sachusetts through Ontario and Michigan to Missouri, south to Florida, and west to Texas. The area where it grows includes about 800,000 square miles. It is most common and of largest size in the South, comparatively rare in the North, generally occurs in the shade of taller trees, and prefers well-drained soil, but is not particular whether it is fertile or thin.

The dogwood is valuable as ornament and for its wood. It was formerly a source of medicine, from roots, bark, and flowers; but it seems to have been largely displaced by other drugs; was once considered a good subst.i.tute for quinine, that use having been learned from Indian doctors. The Indians dug roots for a scarlet dye with which the vain warrior stained escutcheons on buckskin, and colored porcupine quills and bald eagle feathers for decorating his moccasins and his hair.

The dogwood varies in size from a shrub with many branches to a tree forty feet high, eighteen inches in diameter, and with a flat but shapely crown. The trunk rises as a shaft with little taper, until the first branches are reached. All the branches start at the same place, and the trunk ends abruptly--divides into branches. Flowers are an important part of the tree, as might be inferred from the prominence given them in the tree's names. In the South the flowers appear in March, in the North in May, and in both regions before the opening of the leaves. The flowers on vigorous trees are three or four inches across, white, and very showy. A dogwood tree in full bloom against a hillside in spring is a most conspicuous object, and is justly admired by all who have appreciation of beauty. The flowers fall as leaves appear, and for some months the tree occupies its little s.p.a.ce in the forest un.o.bserved; but in the autumn it bursts again into glory, and while not quite as conspicuous an object as when in bloom, it is no less worthy of admiration. The fall of the leaves reveals the brilliant scarlet fruit which ladens the branches. The berries are just large enough for a good mouthful for a bird, but birds spare them until fully ripe to the harvest, and they then harvest them very rapidly. The tree is thus permitted to display its fruit a considerable time before yielding it to the feathered inhabitants of the air whose mission in forest economy is to scatter the seeds of trees, when nature provides the seeds themselves with no wings for flying.

The two periods in the year when dogwood is highly ornamental, the flowers in spring before leaves appear, and fruit in autumn after leaves fall, are responsible for this tree's importance in ornamental planting.

It is a common park tree, but it is small, generally not more than fifteen feet high, and it occupies subordinate places in the plans of the landscape garden. It is a filler between oaks, pines, and spruces, and it pa.s.ses unnoticed, except when in bloom and in fruit.

Dogwood is about four pounds per cubic foot heavier than white oak, has the same breaking strength, and is lower in elasticity. It is quite commonly believed that this tree has no heartwood, but the belief is erroneous. It seldom has much, and small trunks often none; but when dogwood reaches maturity it develops heart. Sometimes the heartwood is no larger than a lead pencil in trunks forty or fifty years old. The heart is brown, sapwood is white, and is the part wanted by the users of dogwood. Annual rings are obscure and it is a tree of slow growth. The wood is as nearly without figure as any in this country. It seldom or never goes to sawmills. The logs are too small. Most of the supply is bought by manufacturers of shuttles and golf stick heads, in this country and Europe. They purchase it by the cord or piece. It does not figure much in any part of the lumber business, but is cut and marketed in ways peculiar to itself. Log cutters in hardwood forests pay little attention to it. The dogwood harvest comes princ.i.p.ally from southern states. Village merchants are the chief collectors, and they sell to contractors who s.h.i.+p to buyers in the manufacturing centers. The village merchants buy from farmers, who cut a stick here and there as they find it in woodlots, forests, or by the wayside, on their own land or somebody else's. When the cutter next drives to town he throws his few dogwoods in the wagon, and trades them to the store keeper for groceries or other merchandise. It is small business, but in the aggregate it brings together enough dogwood to supply the trade.

Dogwood has many uses, but none other approaches shuttle making and golfhead manufacture in importance. The wood is made into brush blocks, wedges, engraver's blocks, tool handles, machinery bearings as a subst.i.tute for lignum-vitae, small hubs, and many kinds of turnery and other small articles.

WESTERN DOGWOOD (_Cornus nuttallii_) is a larger, taller tree than the eastern flowering dogwood. A height of 100 feet is claimed for it in the low country along the coast of British Columbia, but there are no authentic reports of trees so large anywhere south of the boundary between Canada and the United States. Its height ranges from twenty to fifty feet, and its diameter from six to twenty inches. The appearance is much the same as its eastern relative. Its berries are red, and grow in cl.u.s.ters of forty or less; the bark on old trunks is rough, but is smooth on those of medium size; the flowers are generally described as very large and showy, but the true flower is quite an inconspicuous affair, being a small, greenish-yellow, b.u.t.ton-like cl.u.s.ter, surrounded by four or six snowy-white or sometimes pinkish scales which are popularly but erroneously supposed to form a portion of the real flower.

The western dogwood in its native forest often puts out flowers in autumn; is well supplied with foliage which a.s.sumes red and orange colors in the fall when the showy berries are at their best. However, the tree has not yet won its way into the good graces of landscape gardeners, and has not been much planted in parks. It wants some of the good points possessed by the flowering dogwood. The western tree shows to best advantage in its native forest where it thrives on gentle mountain slopes and in low bottoms, valleys, and gulches, provided the soil is well drained and rich. It runs southward fifteen hundred miles from Vancouver island to southern California. It cares little for suns.h.i.+ne, and often is found growing nicely in dense shade. Seedlings do better where shade is deep. The wood is lighter but somewhat stronger than that of the flowering dogwood; is pale reddish-brown, with thick sapwood; is hard, and checks badly in seasoning. Mature trees are from 100 to 150 years.

BLUE DOGWOOD (_Cornus alternifolia_) is given that name because of the blue fruit it bears. It has a number of other names, among them being purple dogwood, green osier, umbrella tree, pigeonberry, and alternate-leaved dogwood, the last being simply a translation of its botanical name. It grows in more northern lat.i.tudes than the flowering dogwood, and does not range as far south. It is found from Nova Scotia to Alabama, and westward to Minnesota, but its southern habitat lies along the Appalachian mountain ranges. It attains size and a.s.sumes form similar to the flowering dogwood. The wood is heavy, hard, brown, tinged with red, the sapwood white. It is a deep forest tree, but has been domesticated in a few instances where it has been planted as ornament.

The wood seems to possess the good qualities of flowering dogwood, but no reports of uses for it have been made.

Two varieties of flowering dogwood have been produced by cultivation, weeping dogwood (_Cornus florida pendula_), and red-bract dogwood (_Cornus florida rubra_). English cornel or dogwood (_Cornus mas_) has been planted in many parts of this country. The so-called Jamaica dogwood is not in the dogwood family.

ANDROMEDA (_Andromeda ferruginea_) is a small southern tree of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and in the latter state is sometimes known as t.i.ti, though other trees also bear that name. The largest are thirty feet high, if by chance one can be found standing erect, for most of them prefer to sprawl at full length on the ground. The fruit is a small berry of no value. The wood is weak, but hard and sufficiently compact to receive fine polish. The heartwood is light brown, tinged with red.

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CALIFORNIA LAUREL

[Ill.u.s.tration: CALIFORNIA LAUREL]

CALIFORNIA LAUREL

(_Umbellularia Californica_)

This tree's range lies in southern Oregon and in California. It is a member of the laurel family and is closely related to the eastern sa.s.safras and the red and the swamp bays of the southern states; but it is not near kin to the eastern laurels which, strange as it may appear, do not belong to the laurel family, notwithstanding the names they bear.

The people of California and Oregon have several names for this interesting tree. It is known as mountain laurel, California bay tree, myrtle tree, cajeput, California olive, spice tree, laurel, bay tree, oreodaphne, and California sa.s.safras.

Those who call it laurel name it on account of its large, l.u.s.trous, thick leaves which adhere to the branches from two to six years. All new leaves do not come at once, as with most trees, but appear a few at a time during the whole summer.

The names which connect this tree with sa.s.safras, spice and cajeput are based on odor and taste. All members of the laurel family in this country are characterized by pungent, aromatic odor and taste, and the one under consideration shares these properties in a remarkable degree.

When the leaves and the green bark are crushed, they give off a light, volatile oil in follicles which float in the air, like those of an onion, and when inhaled it produces severe pain over the eyes, and may induce dizziness and violent sneezing. Though the symptoms are alarming to one who is undergoing the experience for the first time, no serious inconvenience follows. Dried leaves are capable of producing a similar effect but with less violence. The California laurel's close relations.h.i.+p to the camphor tree is readily believed by persons who inhale some of the oily spray from the crushed leaves.

Attempts have been made to produce the commercial oil of cajeput, or a subst.i.tute for it, by distilling the leaves and bark of this laurel. A pa.s.sable subst.i.tute has been manufactured, but it cannot be marketed as the genuine article. By distilling the fruit a product known as umbellulic acid has been obtained.

The California laurel carries a very dense crown of leaves. This is due partly to the old crops which hang so long, and to the tree's habit of lengthening its leading shoots during the growing season, and the constant appearance of young leaves on the lengthening shoots. It can stand an almost unlimited amount of shade itself, and is by no means backward in giving abundance of shade to small growth which is trying to struggle up to light from below. It delights in dense thickets, but it prefers thickets of its own species.

Its fruiting habits and its disposition to occupy the damp, rich soil along the banks of small water courses, are responsible for the thick stands. The fruit itself is an interesting thing. It is yellowish-green in color, as large as a good-sized olive, and looks much like it. The fruit ripens in October, and falls in time to get the benefit of the autumn rains which visit the Pacific coast. Since the trees generally grow along gulches, the fruit falls and rolls to the bottom. The first das.h.i.+ng rain sends a flood down the gulches, the laurel drupes are carried along and are buried in mud wherever they can find a resting place. Germination takes place soon after. The fruit remains under the mud, attached to the roots of the young plants, until the following summer.

The result is that if a laurel gets a foothold in a gulch through which water occasionally flows, lines of young laurels will eventually cover the banks of the gulch as far down stream as conditions are favorable.

The wood of California laurel weighs 40.60 pounds per cubic foot when kiln-dried. That is nine pounds heavier than sa.s.safras. It is very heavy when green and sinks when placed in water. It is hard and very firm, rich yellowish brown in color, often beautifully mottled; but this applies to the heartwood only, and not to the thick sapwood.

Lumbermen have discovered that the wood's color can be materially changed by immersing the logs when green, and leaving them submerged a long time. The beautiful "black myrtle," which has been so much admired, is nothing more than California laurel which has undergone the cold water treatment.

The annual rings of growth are clearly marked by dark bands of summerwood. The rings are often wide, but not always, for sometimes the growth is very slow. The wood is diffuse-porous, and the pores are small and not numerous. The wood's figure is brought out best by tangential sawing, as is the case with so many woods which have clearly-marked rings but small and obscure medullary rays. Figure is not uniform; that is, one trunk may produce a pattern quite different from another. The figure of some logs is particularly beautiful; these logs are selected for special purposes. Sudworth says that none of our hardwoods excels it in beautiful grain when finished, and Sargent is still more emphatic when he declares that it is "the most valuable wood produced in the forests of Pacific North America for interior finish of houses and for furniture."

The wood of this tree has more than ninety per cent of the strength of white oak, is considerably stiffer, and contains a smaller amount of ash, weight for weight of wood. The species reaches its best development in the rich valleys of southwestern Oregon, where, with the broadleaf maple, it forms a considerable part of the forest growth. The largest trees are from sixty to eighty feet high, and two to four in diameter.

In crowded stands the trunks are shapely, and often measure thirty or forty feet to the first limbs; but more commonly the trunk is short.