PLANER TREE; WATER ELM (Planera aquatica, Gmelin). SO to 40 feet. Little tree with crooked branches forming a round, low dome above the short trunk. Bark scaly, thin, gray, shedding in flakes, showing the red lining. Wood brown, close-grained, soft, light, of no use. Leaves about e inches long, alternate, -ranked, ovate, often sickle-shaped, finely scalloped, pointed, oblique at base, dull green, paler beneath, with yellow midrib and veins. Flowers like those of hack
berry, but smaller. February and March. Fruit a 1-seeded drupe in dry, thin, horny pericarp; seed black. April. Dist.: Swamp land, North Carolina to Florida; west to Missouri and Texas.