AMERICAN HORNBEAM; BLUE BEECH (Carpinus Caroline ana, Walt). 10 to 40 feet. Bushy, gnarled, shapeless, often leaning, tree, with flattened head of long, zigzag branches, drooping in thread-like, supple twigs. Bark furrowed and rough at base of old trunks; usually smooth, fine-textured, bluish gray, swollen in irregular lines that look like veins under the surface. Branches gray; twigs red, at first silky. Wood brown, hard, heavy, fine textured, difficult to work; used for levers, tool handles, wedges, maul beads, mill cogs, and ox-yokes. Leaves ovate-oblong, often curved to sickle-shape, with long point, double saw-toothed margin and bounded base, above short petiole. Flowers moncecious, in
April; staminate in drooping, lateral catkins; pistillate in terminal racemes, with green scales and red stigmas. Fruit paired nutlets, with wings, leaf-like, l-lobed, saw-toothed. Dist.: Along watercourses, in shade of other trees; lower Can. ada to Florida; west to Minnesota and Texas; also in Mexico and Central America. Worthy of planting in parks for its orange and scarlet autumn coloring.