The two most important mahoganies of commerce--leaving botany out of the question--grow in Africa and in America. The most important of the African mahoganies is _Khaya senegalensis_, and of the American is _Swietenia mahagoni_. It is the latter which extends its range into the United States, and it alone will be considered in these pages as true mahogany; the status of foreign woods which pa.s.s as mahogany will not be discussed.
Leaves of the mahogany tree are three or four inches long, and an inch or more wide. They are compound, with from three to five pairs of leaflets. The tree is an evergreen and presents a fine appearance. The flowers appear in July and August, are small and cup-shaped. Fruit is four or five inches long and two or more wide. It ripens in late fall or early winter. The nearly square seeds are three-fourths of an inch long.
In Florida the tree rarely exceeds fifty feet in height and two in diameter; but in tropical countries it may exceed a height of 100 and a diameter of eight or ten. The bark is thin.
The wood is practically of the same weight as white oak, but is stronger and more elastic. It is exceedingly hard, very durable, and is susceptible of high polish. Medullary rays are numerous but small and obscure. The color is rich reddish-brown, turning darker with age, but the thin sapwood is yellow. It is known in Florida as mahogany, madeira, and redwood.
The uses of mahogany are so many and so well-known that it is unnecessary to speak of them in detail. There were importations into the United States nearly three hundred years ago, and it has been coming ever since. One thing about this wood deserves mention: the price has not varied much in three hundred years. Different prices have prevailed, owing to distance from supply and differences in grade and quality; and that holds true today; but for similar grades, the prices have been remarkable for their evenness.
Florida never figured largely in the world"s supply of mahogany. At their best, the trees were neither large nor numerous, but their quality was good. Cutting of this timber ceased in Florida about three-quarters of a century ago. The islands and the small area of the mainland where the timber grew, were stripped. The logs were shipped to the Bahama islands and it is said they found their ultimate market in England. A few trees were overlooked here and there, and some that were small seventy-five years ago, have grown to merchantable size since. These have been cut, a few at a time, and the cutting is still going on. The total is now only a few thousand feet a year, and one of the markets for the logs, probably the chief market, is Miami, Florida. The logs are small, and are generally cut and brought in by negroes who find a tree now and then, cut the logs, and float them as near to market as possible, and haul them the rest of the way. The scarcity of the trees may be inferred from the fact that the average resident of south Florida, where the range of the mahogany lies, never saw one. In appearance the tree when seen at a little distance, resembles a young, vigorous black walnut tree.
CHINA TREE (_Melia azedarach_) belongs to the same family as mahogany but is of a different genus. It is not native in the United States, but has been extensively planted and is running wild. It is a forest tree in some parts of Louisiana, but is found under pure forest conditions only here and there. As such, the trunk and thin crown look like a forest grown b.u.t.ternut tree in Wisconsin. It is abundant in yards and along streets, where it is often called Chinaball tree. A little of the wood is used. The color resembles mahogany, but the texture is much coa.r.s.er.
Annual rings are clearly marked by rows of large pores, and the wood does not polish well. It is sometimes known as pride of India, which country is its native home, or it was carried there from Persia at an early date. A variety, commonly known as the Texas Umbrella tree (_Melia azedarach umbraculifera_), has been widely planted, and is known by its short trunk and dense, round crown.
SOAPBERRY (_Sapindus saponaria_), known also as false dogwood, is a species of south Florida, and is one of three soap trees in this country. It has no family kinship with mahogany, but the appearance of the trees leads some persons to conclude that they are related to the China tree. In fact, one of the species is locally known as wild China and Chinaberry. They are called soap trees because their fruit has a property which causes water to foam, and the natives of the West Indies once used it for soap. The botanical name _Sapindus_ means "Indian soap." The tree is twenty-five or thirty feet high, and ten or twelve inches in diameter. The bloom appears in November in Florida, and the fruit ripens the following spring. The wood is heavy, rather hard, and is light brown, tinged with yellow. It reaches largest size on the Thousand Islands, Florida. Another species is _Sapindus marginatus_ which attains size similar to that of the first. It is found in southern Florida, but is not abundant. It grows as far north as the mouth of the St. John river. A third species is _Sapindus drummondi_ which has its range from western Louisiana, Arkansas, and southern Kansas, through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, to Mexico. The flowers appear in May and June, and the fruit ripens in September and October, but it hangs on the trees until the following spring. When first ripe, it is half an inch in diameter, and yellow, but when it dries it turns black. Trees attain diameters up to two feet, and heights of forty or fifty. It is commonly supposed to be the Chinaberry, by persons who judge by general appearances, but the two are not related. The wood"s appearance suggests the heartwood of ash. It probably reaches its best development in Texas where it is manufactured into boxes, crates, and even furniture, but not in large amounts. It is reputed to be a rapid grower, and it may be under the most favorable circ.u.mstances, but it is usually of rather slow growth. The wood splits readily into thin strips which are employed in making baskets for harvesting cotton. In western Texas it is made into pack saddle frames.
MOUNTAIN MAHOGANY (_Cercocarpus ledifolius_) is not a mahogany, and is not even in the same family. It belongs to the rose family, and is closely related to the crabapple; but since it is commonly known as mahogany, it is proper to mention it here. Extensive consideration is unnecessary, for the tree is not important as a source of wood. Three species are recognized by some botanists, four by others. All are western, and are noted for their long-tailed fruit. The generic name refers to that feature. The seed, with its tail, is carried by the wind, or it catches in the wool of sheep and the hair of cattle and goats, or the feathers of birds, and is carried far and near. The mountain mahogany sometimes is thirty feet high, and two in diameter. It grows from 5,000 to 9,000 feet elevation, sometimes on steep cliffs. Its range extends from Wyoming and Montana to Oregon, California, Arizona, and New Mexico. The wood is bright, clear red, or rich dark brown. It reaches its largest size on the mountains of central Nevada. Another species is known as valley mahogany (_Cercocarpus parvifolius_). It ranges from Nebraska to Oregon, and Texas to California. Its rate of growth is very slow, and it seldom exceeds a height of thirty feet and a diameter of ten inches. The wood is reddish-brown. A third species, called Trask mahogany (_Cercocarpus traskiae_) is chiefly notable on account of its restricted range. It occurs as far as known, in a single canyon of Santa Catalina island, off the southern coast of California. Some of the specimens are twenty feet high and six inches in diameter. A fourth species, or a variety, is known as short-flower mahogany (_Cercocarpus parvifolius breviflorus_). It occurs in western Texas, southern New Mexico and Arizona, usually at elevations about 5,000 feet above sea level where the largest trees are not more than eight inches in diameter and twenty-five feet high.
VAUQUELINIA (_Vauquelinia californica_) belongs to the same family as the so-called western mahoganies, that is, the rose family; but it is of a different genus. Its range is largely south of the international boundary, but it extends into southern Arizona where the best development of the species occurs about 5,000 feet above the sea on gra.s.sy slopes. It is seldom more than a bush, and the wood is very heavy and hard, and is dark-brown, streaked with red.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
BLACK WILLOW
[Ill.u.s.tration: BLACK WILLOW]
BLACK WILLOW
(_Salix Nigra_)
The willows and the cottonwoods belong to the same family of trees, _Salicaceae_, and the family is fairly numerous, and it has some well-defined traits of character. The quinine-bitter of the bark is ever present, but more marked in willows than in cottonwoods. Though quite unpleasant to the taste, it is harmless. The leaves never grow in pairs, and in most instances they fall early in autumn, and some without changing color. Male and female flowers are borne on different trees, and fertilizing is done by insects, often by honey bees and b.u.mblebees.
Fruit ripens in late spring, and the seeds are equipped for flight by being provided with exceedingly fine silky hairs. The wind carries them long distances. The trees generally grow in the immediate vicinity of streams or in situations where the soil is damp, but there are exceptions.
The willow family consists of two genera, one the cottonwoods or poplars, the other the willows proper. There are about seventy-five species of willow in America, twenty of them trees. Some, however, are quite small and only occasionally attain sizes which place them in the tree cla.s.s. The willows are old residents of this continent. They grew in the central portion of what is now the United States in the Cretaceous age, as is proved by their leaf prints in the rocks. They have held their ground ever since, and there is no likelihood that they are about to give it up. Few species are better fitted for holding what they have. A few trees are capable of seeding a large region in a few years, and if soil and situation are suitable, reproduction will be abundant. The willows" tenacity of life is often remarkable. It sometimes seems next to impossible to kill them by cutting off their tops. There are said to be instances in Europe where willows have been pollarded successively during hundreds of years, the crops of sprouts being used for wickerwork and other purposes. No such records exist in this country, but the willow"s sprouting habit is well known. A shoot stuck in the ground will grow, and a fence post will sprout. Many willows develop large stools, or roots, and repeatedly send up numerous sprouts, and it makes little difference how often they are cut, others will come up.
Comparatively few willows that start in life ever become trees. They are suppressed by crowding, or meet misfortunes of one kind or another which keep them small, but occasionally a tree of good size results. Willow trees are usually not old. Probably few reach an age exceeding 150 years. Large trunks, in old age, are apt to be hollow or otherwise defective, though a willow tree will live many years after much of its trunk has disappeared. A little green bark on the side, and sprouts from the stump will maintain life long after all usefulness has ceased.
Young willows are usually pliant and tough, old are stiff and brash.
They range from sea level up to 10,000 feet or more; grow profusely in the wet lands about the gulf of Mexico, and likewise on the bleak coasts of the Arctic ocean. Commander Peary found willows blooming in considerable profusion on the extreme northern sh.o.r.e of Greenland, where they produce enough growth during the few weeks of summer sunshine to afford the muskox the means of eking out a living during his sojourn in those inhospitable regions.
The identification of willows is one of the most difficult tasks that fall to the botanists. Black willow is unquestionably the most important willow in this country from the lumberman"s standpoint. It is the common tree willow that attains size suitable for sawlogs. If a forest grown willow of large size is encountered east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States, it is pretty safe to cla.s.s it as black willow. There are some others which grow large, but not many. Planted willows, both large and small, may be foreign species, and white willows, which are not native in this country, but have been widely planted, and are running wild, may be occasionally found of ample size for saw timber.
Black willow"s range extends from New Brunswick to Florida, west to the Dakotas, and south to Texas, thence pa.s.sing into Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. It attains its best size in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, though large trees are found in other parts of its range. It is difficult to say what its average size is, for some black willows are only a few feet high and an inch or two in diameter. The largest trees exceed 100 feet in height and three in diameter. An extreme size of seven feet in diameter has been reported. It is not unusual to see willow logs three feet in diameter in mill yards in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas, and logs four feet in diameter are not so unusual as to excite much comment. The average sizes, however, of willow sawlogs in that region are from eighteen inches to two feet.
The wood of black willow is pale reddish-brown. When freshly cut it is sometimes purple, almost black. When sawed in lumber and exposed to the air the dark color fades. The wood is soft but firm. It has about fifty per cent of the strength of white oak, and forty per cent of its stiffness. It weighs 27.77 pounds per cubic foot; and considering its weight, it is tolerably strong and stiff.
Probably no other wood in the United States is as systematically cheated out of its just credit as this one. Many of the oaks are seldom given their proper names, but they are listed as oak in sawmill output, and thus the genus, if not the species is given credit. But willow is almost totally ignored. The United States census in 1910 credited to all the willow lumber in this country an amount less than a million and a half feet; yet a single mill in Louisiana, and not a large mill at that, cut and sold four times that much during that year. The wood was cut by hundreds of other mills, some a few logs only, others considerable quant.i.ties.
It is sold for various purposes, and much of it goes as cottonwood. In some instances it is called brown cottonwood. Probably ninety per cent is made into boxes, but it has many other uses. It is cut into excelsior, made into rotary cut veneer, and finds place in the manufacture of furniture; it is a common woodenware material; slack coopers make barrels of it; and it is turned for baseball bats.
The supply of black willow in this country is not small. It is usually found in wet situations along streams. Sometimes islands and low flats are taken possession of and pure stands result. The growth is sometimes phenomenal. Trunks may add nearly or quite an inch to their diameter per year when conditions are exceptionally favorable. Instances, apparently well authenticated, are reported of abandoned fields along the Mississippi, which in sixty years grew 100,000 feet of willow per acre.
LONGSTALK WILLOW (_Salix longipes_) sometimes grows to a height of thirty feet with a diameter of six or eight inches. Its range extends from Maryland to Texas, and is at its best in the Ozark region of southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas.
ALMONDLEAF WILLOW (_Salix amygdaloides_) grows across northern United States and southern Canada from New York to Oregon, and occurs as far south as Missouri and Ohio, and is abundant in the lower Ohio valley. At its best it is seventy feet high and two feet in diameter. The wood is light, soft, and the heartwood is brown.
SMOOTHLEAF WILLOW (_Salix laevigata_) attains a diameter of one foot and a height of forty or fifty. It is a Pacific coast tree, occurring in California on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas up to an alt.i.tude of 3,000 feet. It is known as black willow. The wood is pale reddish-brown.
SILVERLEAF WILLOW (_Salix sessilifolia_) looks like longleaf willow, and though usually a shrub it sometimes is twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. It grows from the mouth of the Columbia river to southern California.
YEWLEAF WILLOW (_Salix taxifolia_) ranges from western Texas, through southern Arizona into Mexico and Central America. Trees are occasionally forty feet high and more than one foot in diameter. A little fuel and fence posts are cut from this willow.
BEBB WILLOW (_Salix bebbiana_) is nearly always shrubby, but occasionally reaches a trunk diameter of six or eight inches and a height of twenty feet. Its northern limit lies within the Arctic circle, its southern in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and Arizona. West of Hudson bay it forms almost impenetrable thickets, and in Colorado it ascends mountains to elevations of 10,000 feet.
GLAUCOUS WILLOW (_Salix discolor_), commonly known as silver or p.u.s.s.y willow, ranges from Nova Scotia to Manitoba, and southward to Delaware, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. It is one of the best known willows within its range, on account of its flowers which are among the earliest of the season, and very showy.
The largest specimens are scarcely twenty-five feet high and twelve inches in diameter.
MACKENZIE WILLOW (_Salix cordata mackenzieana_) is not abundant, and is one of the smallest of the tree willows. It is nearly always a shrub. Its range extends from California nearly to the Arctic circle, where it occurs in gravelly soil on the borders of mountain streams.
MISSOURI WILLOW (_Salix missouriensis_) is so named because it occurs princ.i.p.ally in Missouri, but its range extends into Kansas and Iowa. It is occasionally forty feet high and a foot in diameter.
It is used for fence posts.
BIGELOW WILLOW (_Salix lasiolepis_) is generally called white willow on account of its gray bark. It occurs in California and Arizona, and at its best it is twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. Some use is made of it as fuel, where other wood is scarce.
NUTTALL WILLOW (_Salix nuttallii_), called also mountain willow in Montana, ranges from British America, east of the Rocky Mountains, to southern California. Its usual height is twenty or twenty-five feet, and its diameter six or eight inches. In southern California it grows 10,000 feet above sea level.
HOOKER WILLOW (_Salix hookeriana_) occurs in the coast region from Vancouver island to southern Oregon, and varies in height from a sprawling shrub to a height of thirty feet and a diameter of one.
Little use is made of it.
SILKY WILLOW (_Salix sitchensis_), known also as Sitka willow, ranges from Alaska to southern California. The largest specimens are twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. Trunks are largely sapwood and are of little commercial importance.
BROADLEAF WILLOW (_Salix amplifolia_), known also as feltleaf willow, was discovered in Alaska in 1899. The leaves are woolly. The largest trees rarely exceed a height of thirty feet and a diameter of six inches. Its range extends to the valley of the Mackenzie river.
A number of foreign willows have become naturalized in the United States. Among them is white willow (_Salix alba_), which grows to large size, probably as large as black willow; crack willow (_Salix fragilis_), so named on account of the brittleness of its twigs; and weeping willow (_Salix babylonica_). The botanical name is based on the supposition that it was this willow, growing by the rivers near Babylon, on which the captive Hebrews hung their harps. Basket willow is planted for its osiers in several eastern states. It is not a single species, but a group of varieties developed by cultivation.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
HARDY CATALPA
[Ill.u.s.tration: HARDY CATALPA]