The Silver Bell Tree and the Sweet Leaf - Family Styraceae

2. Genus SYMPLOCOS, L'Her.

Trees with pithy branchlets, forming open, round head. Leaves half evergreen, simple, alternate, entire, oval. Flowers small, perfect, white, bell shaped in axillary clusters. Fruit a brown berry. (S. tinctoria) SWEET LEAF Symplocos is a large genus of trees that grow wild in Aus tralia and in the tropics of Asia and America. Many species belonging to British India yield important dyes and drugs. A species from Japan has recently created a stir in horticultural circles in this country. It has profuse white flowers that look like those of the hawthorns, hence its name, S. cratagoides. These racemed flowers give place to berries which turn on ripening to a brilliant blue, which make the shrubby tree a most striking and beautiful object in a garden in the fall. The only American representative of this genus is a little tree.

Sweet Leaf, Horse Sugar (Symplocos tinctoria, L'Her.)— A small, open-headed tree, t o to 3o feet high, with short trunk and slim, ascending branches. Bark ashy grey with reddish cast, warty. Buds ovate, with triangular scales. Leaves leathery, dark green and lustrous above; paler and pubescent beneath; 5 to 6 inches long, 1 to 2 inches wide, tapering at base and apex; entire or remotely toothed on margins; petioles short, winged. Flowers white, fragrant, in close axillary clusters; March to May. Fruit, a brown, nut-like drupe with i seed. Preferred habitat, moist, shady woodlands. Distribution, Delaware to Florida; west to Blue Ridge Mountains, and in Gulf States to Louisiana and southern Arkansas. Uses: Rare in gardens, though it deserves attention for its handsome, sweet-tasting foliage. Bark of stems and roots, bitter and aromatic, yields yellow dye and has tonic medicinal properties. Horses and cattle browse the foliage.

1. Genus FRAXINUS, Linn.

VaLUABLE timber and ornamental trees. Leaves deciduous, pinnately compound, opposite. Flowers small, inconspicuous, in compound panicles; the two kinds, except in A, borne on separate trees. Fruit a dry seed, winged like a dart.

KeY TO MOST IMPORTANT SPECIES A. Twigs 4-angled; flowers perfect.

(F. quadrangulata) BLUE ASH AA. Twigs round; flowers dicecious.

13. Branchlets, petioles and leaf linings smooth.

C. Buds brown; leaflets stalked.

D.

Leaves whitish beneath.

E. Wings of fruit broad; leaflets blunt.

(F. Carolinian) SWAMP ASH EE. Wings of fruit narrow; leaflets taper pointed.

(F. Americana) WHITE ASH DD. Leaves green beneath. (F. lanceolata) GREEN ASH CC. Buds black; leaflets sessile. (F. ni gra) BLACK ASH BB. Branchlets, petioles and leaf linings downy.

C. Twigs slender; keys very long and slender.

(F. Pennsylvanica) RED ASH CC. Twigs stout; leaves pale green.

D.

Trunk cylindrical. (F. Oregona) OREGON ASH DD. Trunk bulging at base. (F. prolunda) PUMPKIN ASH Ash trees are easily distinguished in the woods by the opposite arrangement of their pinnately compound leaves. Hickories, walnuts, and other trees with similar leaves will be found to have an alternate arrangement. The snugly fitting bark, broken into small, often diamond-shaped plates, gives the trunk of an ash a trim, handsome appearance in the winter woods. The seeds.

winged and shaped like darts, are borne profusely, and are quite sufficient identification. No other tree bears a fruit that can be confused with this one.

There are thirty known species in the genus Fraxinus, half of which inhabit North America, covering all sections except the coldest. The Northern Hemisphere in the Old World is as well supplied. Cuba, northern Africa and the Orient have tropical species.

It is not so clear to ordinary people as it is to the botanists that the ashes belong to the olive family. If we knew all the tropical members of the group we might not be surprised. The relationship is established by morphological characters obvious only to trained observers.

The name ash is applied to several other kinds of trees. Mountain ashes belong to the rose family. Prickly ash belongs with the sumachs in the rue family. "Yellow ash" is a Tennes see name for Cladrastis lutea, the virgilia, a member of the locust family. The "hoop ash" of Vermont is the hackberry, a close relative of the elms.