MINOR SPECIES
A considerable number of trees grow in this country which, taken singly, are of small importance, but in the aggregate they fill a place which would be difficult to fill without them. Most of them are local, and are seldom heard of outside of the regions where they grow. Some are small, and for that reason are not demanded by the ordinary user of lumber; but small size is not necessarily a bar to the use of a wood. Many places may be filled by pieces too small for the sawmill. Sometimes a diminutive trunk contains material of extraordinary hardness, or it may be polished to a rare smoothness, or the colors may be exquisite.
Numerous commodities can be successfully manufactured from blocks or billets which are only a few inches in diameter and a foot or two in length. This is particularly true of some of the rare hardwoods of Florida and southern Texas where tropical species have extended their ranges northward over the borders of the United States. Some of the small trees in that group are known by name in only the immediate locality where they grow, and their qualities are scarcely appreciated even there. In some instances railroad ties are hewed from wood which is fit for the finest furniture.
It is no uncommon thing for Mexicans along the Rio Grande to warm their huts and cook their meals with fuel chopped from trunks of Texas ebony, algarita, cat"s claw, bluewood, huisache, retama, and junco. Those who have traveled among the Indian rancherias of New Mexico and Utah have grown familiar with the peculiar odor filling the air in the vicinity of camp fires. It is the smoke of the rare junipers which the Indians burn for fuel; and yet it is wood of such soft tones and exquisite blending of colors that the shades of a Persian rug suffer by comparison. Among the ten thousand islands which fringe the coasts of south Florida, and also among the hummocks of the mainland, are rare trees whose wood is unsurpa.s.sed in hardness, fineness of texture, and beauty. These are not being used at all, or only as fuel to feed some fisherman"s or camper"s fire, or to make a smoke to drive away mosquitoes. The time will come when small and scarce woods will be sought, if they are valuable for any special purpose. In preceding pages of this book many minor species have been listed and briefly described in connection with those more important, and with which they are closely related. There are more than a hundred others which were necessarily omitted from former pages. A few of these deserve at least a brief mention, and are listed in the following paragraphs.
KBERLINIA (_Kberlinia spinosa_) is commonly considered a curiosity; a tree without a relative in the world, and without leaves, flowers, or fruit. The popular notion is wrong, of course, for no tree is without relatives, and none without leaves, flowers, and fruit, or something that takes their place. The flowers, leaves, and fruit of this tree are small and escape notice of the casual observer, but they exist. Its nearest relative in this country is the paradise tree of Florida and the ailanthus introduced from China. It has a small, th.o.r.n.y, crooked trunk; the wood is dark, turning nearly black with exposure; it is rich with oil; and it is very hard. The species grows in certain places along the Rio Grande. The wood is made into canes, rulers, knife handles, turned articles, and a little furniture of the smaller kinds. The trunks are too small for ordinary sizes of lumber.
GUM ELASTIC (_b.u.melia lanuginosa_) ranges from Georgia to Texas, and in Florida is called black haw. Children in Texas mix its berries with chewing gum, to increase the quant.i.ty, and the name which they apply to it is "gum stretch it." An exuded resin is also used for chewing gum.
Trees are sometimes sixty feet high and two in diameter, and a considerable number of logs go to hardwood mills, where they lose their name, and possibly appear as ash lumber, or occasionally as maple. The wood is white, tinged with yellow, and is manufactured into agricultural implements. A scarce and smaller species, known as buckthorn b.u.melia and ironwood (_b.u.melia lycioides_) covers nearly the same range. From a tree of the same family in southern Asia the gutta percha of commerce is obtained. Other woods of the same family in this country are mastic (_Sideroxylon mastichodendron_) of south Florida, a tree sometimes sixty feet high and three feet in diameter, useful for boat building; satinleaf (_Chrysophyllum monopyrenum_), also of Florida, a tree twenty-five feet high and one in diameter, the wood very heavy, hard, and strong; tough b.u.melia (_b.u.melia tenax_), ranging from South Carolina to Florida, a tree twenty feet high and six inches in diameter, called black haw in some parts of its range; saffron plum or ant"s wood (_b.u.melia angustifolia_), growing in Florida and Texas, the trunk twenty feet high and six inches in diameter; wood orange colored, and the fruit sweet; bustic (_Dipholis salicifolia_), in south Florida, a tree forty feet high and eighteen inches in diameter, with wood exceedingly hard, strong, and heavy, and dark brown or red in color; wild sapodilla or dilly (_Mimusops sieberi_), a tree of south Florida with rich, very dark brown wood, height of tree twenty feet, diameter one foot.
DWARF SUMACH (_Rhus copallina_) is known by many names. It is distinguished from staghorn sumach by its smooth branches, those of staghorn being hairy. Sumach"s chief importance is due to its value as tanning material. Leaves and small branches are used. The family has some well-known members in other parts of the world, among them the mangoes. The name dwarf sumach is not well selected, for the species is nearly as large as any other sumach. Trees are sometimes thirty feet high and ten inches in diameter. The tree"s range extends from New England to Florida and Texas. It reaches its largest size west of the Mississippi river. In the East and North it is usually a shrub. Trees of largest size are not believed to exceed fifty years in age. The wood is richly striped with yellow and black. b.a.l.l.s turned of it, seven inches in diameter, are used for newel-post ornaments, and smaller b.a.l.l.s are made for use in darning stockings. Cups are turned on the lathe, and the bright stripes in the wood give the wares a striking appearance. It was formerly much employed for spiles in tapping maple trees for sugar making. Staghorn sumach (_Rhus hirta_) is of a different species but of the same genus. Its range extends from New Brunswick nearly to the Mississippi river. Its name refers to the down on the young branches resembling the velvet on the horns of a deer at certain seasons. The tree is known as Virginia sumach and hairy sumach. Its compound leaves are sometimes two feet long--two or three times the size of dwarf sumach"s. Trunks have been reported forty feet high and more than a foot through. The uses of this wood are the same as of dwarf sumach, including tanning. It is more abundant east than west of the Alleghanies. Poisonwood (_Rhus metopium_) belongs to the same family. It is known in Florida as doctor gum, hog plum, coral sumach, b.u.mwood, and mountain manchineel. The juice is exceedingly poisonous, and gum produced by wounding the bark is reported to have medicinal value. Trees are sometimes forty feet high and two feet in diameter. The American smoke tree (_Cotinus cotinoides_) is another member of the sumach family. It is found in the southern states from eastern Tennessee to Texas. It is nowhere common, and its only reported use is as fence posts. Trees may be a foot in diameter and thirty feet high. The wood is a bright clear orange color, and a yellow dye has been manufactured from it. Poison sumach (_Rhus vernix_) is not the same as poisonwood, though sometimes the two are confounded. It is usually a shrub, and rarely twenty feet high. It is overloaded with names, as might be expected of a plant considered as dangerous as this. Among its names are poison elder, poison dogwood, swamp sumach, poison oak, poisonwood, poisontree, and thunderwood. It grows from New England to Georgia, and west to Minnesota and Louisiana. It is apt to occur in wet swamps, and Sargent p.r.o.nounces it "one of the most dangerous plants of the North American flora." A black, l.u.s.trous varnish can be made of the acrid poisonous juice, and this may sometime give the species a commercial value. When the skin is poisoned by contact with this tree, an effective remedy may be found in a saturated alcoholic solution of acetate of lead, if applied as a wash within an hour or two after the poisoning occurs. A wash with pure alcohol is also effective if applied within an hour. Following either treatment the skin should be thoroughly washed with soap and water.
Western sumach (_Rhus integrifolia_), a closely related California species, is a small evergreen, seldom more than twenty feet high and a foot in diameter. The wood is heavy, hard, and red, is used as fuel, and occasionally in small turnery. The fruit is a berry half an inch long.
CASCARA BUCKTHORN (_Rhamnus purshiana_) is of the buckthorn family, and is known by many names on the Pacific coast where the species is best developed. It grows as far east as Colorado and Texas. Cascara sagrada, its Mexican name, is often used for this tree. It is known also as bearberry, bearwood, yellow-wood, pigeonberry, coffeeberry, bayberry, and California coffee. The tree"s usual size is from ten to thirty feet high and twelve to twenty inches in diameter. It is often shrubby, and is more valuable for its bark than its wood. Large quant.i.ties are peeled for medicinal uses, and many trees are thus destroyed. A little of the wood is burned as fuel, and some is made into handles. Yellow buckthorn (_Rhamnus caroliniana_), with a range from New York to Texas, and evergreen buckthorn (_Rhamnus crocea_), a California species, are closely related to cascara buckthorn, but are of comparatively little importance. Blue myrtle (_Ceanothus thyrsiflorus_) is a California species, sometimes called wild lilac or blue blossoms. It ranges in height from thirty-five feet, among the redwoods on the Santa Cruz mountains, to only one foot high on some of the wind-swept coasts. The wood is pale yellowish-brown, and is somewhat used for novelties. Tree myrtle (_Ceanothus arboreus_), often known as lilac, is also a California tree, closely related to blue myrtle, but is of smaller size and of very restricted range. Its prospective value lies more in its bloom than in its wood. Naked-wood (_Colubrina reclinata_), a Florida species, is of a kindred genus. Trees are sometimes fifty feet high and three in diameter. The wood is hard, very strong, and is dark brown tinged with yellow.
LIGNUM-VITae (_Guajac.u.m sanctum_) grows in Florida, and a species which is probably the same is found in south Texas along the Rio Grande. In Texas the tree is known as guayacon, which name has come down from the times when the Carib Indians ruled the West Indies. That was their name for the tree. The annual rings are usually too vague and too involved to be counted, but the tree is known to be of slow growth. The wood is pitted and it contains cavities and creases; but the clear wood is very hard and of fine and various colors. It is dark green, brown, black, yellow and of mixed colors, and clouded effects, all in the same block.
Small pieces of furniture, like bureau cabinets, present attractive combinations of colors. The wood is of such exceeding hardness that it turns, breaks, or batters the carpenter"s tools. Candlesticks, egg cups, goblets, vases, checker pieces, dominos, boxes, trays, canes, paper knives, and souvenirs are manufactured in a small way. Trees attain a height of thirty feet and a diameter of two or more. The compound leaves adhere to the branches until those of the following season appear. The fruit is an orange-colored pod three-fourths of an inch long.
p.r.i.c.kLY ASH (_Xanthoxylum clava-herculis_). Some know this species as toothache tree, tear-blanket, sting-tongue, and Hercules" club. The wood shows little difference in color between heartwood and sap, and bears some resemblance to buckeye. It takes good polish and some of it looks like birdseye maple, but the figure does not seem to be due to advent.i.tious buds. It has been made into picture frames and looks well.
It is a rapid grower, and since its color fits it for the stencil, it might be worthy of consideration for box material. Trees reach a height of twenty-five or thirty feet, and a diameter of a foot or more. Its range extends from Virginia to Texas. Satinwood (_Xanthoxylum cribrosum_) is of the same genus, but it does not grow north of Florida where it is sometimes called yellow-wood. Mature trees are a foot or more in diameter and twenty-five or thirty-five feet high; wood heavy, exceedingly hard and brittle, but not strong; color light orange. It has some use as furniture material, and for certain cla.s.ses of handles which need not be strong. Wild lime (_Xanthoxylum f.a.gara_) is a similar tree, growing in both Florida and Texas, but it is of small size. Hoptree (_Ptelea trifoliata_) is another member of the family. Its fruit is sometimes subst.i.tuted for hops for brewing beer. It is known also as wafer ash, wahoo, and quinine tree; the last name being due to its bitter bark. It grows from Canada to Florida, and west to New Mexico, and seldom exceeds twenty feet in height. Baretta (_Helietta parvifolia_) which occurs as a small tree in southern Texas, is a near relative. Torchwood (_Amyris maritima_), so named because of its fine properties as fuel, grows in southern Florida, sometimes reaching a height of forty feet and a diameter of one. Canotia (_Canotia holacantha_) is a small, scarce tree of Arizona and California and has fine-grained, rich brown wood.
NANNYBERRY (_Viburnum prunifolium_), known as black haw, sloe, sheepberry, and stagbush, grows from Connecticut to Oklahoma and is usually a shrub which springs up along highways and hedges, but it sometimes reaches a height of twenty feet and a diameter of eight inches. It is valuable in some localities in the manufacture of canes and umbrella sticks. Rusty nannyberry (_Viburnum rufotomentosum_) is a similar species, but attains a larger size, and grows from Virginia to Texas. The wood may be known by its disagreeable odor. Sheepberry (_Vibernum lentago_) has a more northern range, from Quebec to Saskatchewan, and south along the mountains to Georgia.
BLUE ELDER (_Sambucus glauca_) is one of three tree elders in the United States, the others being Mexican elder (_Sambucus mexicana_) and red-berried elder (_Sambucus callicarpa_). They are ornamental rather than useful. The three species occur on the Pacific coast. The largest recorded size of an elder was forty feet high and twenty-eight inches in diameter. Its age was about fifty years.
FRINGE TREE (_Chionanthus virginica_) is known also as white fringe, American fringe, white ash, old man"s beard, flowering ash, and sunflower tree. Its natural range extends from Pennsylvania to Florida and west to Texas, but it has been widely planted in this country and Europe. It is seldom more than twenty feet high and eight inches in diameter. The bark possesses medicinal value. Devilwood (_Osmanthus america.n.u.s_) belongs to the same family, but to a different genus. It grows from North Carolina to Florida and west to Louisiana. The largest trunks are a foot in diameter and forty feet high. The wood is strong, heavy, hard, dark brown, and difficult to work.
BLACK IRONWOOD (_Rhamnidium ferreum_) of Florida is among the heaviest, probably is the heaviest, wood of the United States. It weighs 81.14 pounds per cubic foot, and when a hundred pounds of the wood is burned, it leaves eight pounds of ashes--the highest in ash of all woods of the United States. Its fuel value is very high. Trees are small, seldom more than thirty feet high and six inches in diameter. Bluewood (_Condalia obovata_) is a related Texas species, called also logwood and purple haw. It produces heavy, hard, close-grained wood, light red in color.
Trees six inches in diameter and twenty-five feet high are fully up to the average. Along the lower Rio Grande it forms dense, tangled thickets. Red ironwood (_Reynosia latifolia_) of southern Florida belongs to a related species, and is sometimes called darling plum, because its purple fruit is edible. The tree is small, the wood heavy, hard, strong, and of rich brown color. White ironwood (_Hypelate trifoliata_) belongs to a different family. It occurs in Florida where trees are sometimes thirty-five feet high and eighteen inches in diameter. The heavy, hard, rich brown wood is durable in contact with the ground, and is used for fence posts, handles, and boats. Inkwood (_Exothea paniculata_) is of the same family as white ironwood but of a different genus. It is also a Florida species and is known in some localities as ironwood. The tree is occasionally a foot in diameter and forty feet high, wood very hard, heavy, and strong, and bright red in color. It is used by boat builders, for wharfs, and as handle wood.
CINNAMON BARK (_Canella winterana_), also called whitewood and wild cinnamon, is a south Florida species seldom more than twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. The wood is exceedingly heavy, hard, and strong, and of dark reddish-brown color. The wild cinnamon bark of commerce comes from this tree.
JOEWOOD (_Jaquinia armillaris_) grows in the Florida everglades. The dark and beautiful medullary rays of this wood may sometime make it valuable for turnery and small novelties. Trunks seldom exceed six or seven inches in diameter. Marlberry (_Icacorea paniculata_) belongs in the same family with joewood. Trunks are small, but the hard, rich brown wood is beautifully marked with dark medullary rays.
CRABWOOD (_Gymnanthes lucida_) is known chiefly by the fine canes made of it. The tree occurs in southern Florida where it is sometimes known as poisonwood. It is dark brown, streaked with yellow. Trunks more than eight inches in diameter are unusual. Manchineel (_Hippomane mancinella_) is of the same family, and occurs in Florida. The wood is light and soft.
SINGLELEAF PINON (_Pinus monophylla_). This is the only pine in this country with single needles. They are one and one-half inches long, and are curved like the old fashioned sewing awl used by shoemakers. The needles fall during the fourth and fifth years. The cones are one and one-half or two and one-half inches long. The trees are small, averaging fifteen or twenty feet high and eight or twelve inches in diameter. Its range covers portions of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California, but it occupies dry, sterile regions as nearly under desert conditions as can be found in this country. The tree maintains a foothold on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains at an alt.i.tude of 9,000 feet and it descends into the Colorado desert in California at an elevation of 2,000 feet. It endures winter cold below zero on the mountains, and summer temperature of 122 in the Mojave desert. It is fitted to live in a dry, sterile region. The leaves are small and the branches bear few of them.
The thin foliage uses little water, which is a fortunate circ.u.mstance, for there is little to use. Slow growth is the result. The trunk often adds less than an inch to its diameter in twenty years. The trees form very open forest, resembling old orchards, and the greenness usually a.s.sociated with pine landscapes is generally wanting. The singleleaf pine has filled an important place in the development of the region, and furnishes an example of the great service which a small, crooked tree can give when it is the only one to be had. Mines worth many millions of dollars have been worked with little of any other wood. This has been the fuel for the kitchen, the engine house, the blacksmith shop. It has supplied the props, posts, stulls, and lagging for the underground operations. Fences for stock corrals, sheds, stables, cabins, and bridges have been constructed of the small, crooked trunks and the distorted limbs, when no other wood could be had in fifty or a hundred miles. Extensive tracts have been cut clean in the vicinity of mines.
The product of the singleleaf pine forest cannot be measured in board or log feet, because of the smallness of the trunks and branches, but by the cord. The wood is medium heavy, rather high in fuel value, very weak, brittle, and soft. The resin pa.s.sages are few and small, color yellow or light brown, the sapwood nearly white. In contact with the soil the wood is not durable, but its princ.i.p.al use has been in a very dry climate, and it lasts well there. It is the most important of the nut pines.
It produces enormous crops which are larger some years than others. John Muir believed that the singleleaf pinon"s annual nut yield surpa.s.sed California"s yield of wheat. Only a small part of the nut crop is ever put to use by man. Scattered over mountains, mesas, and deserts, 100,000 square miles in extent, most of the nuts fall and decay, though the animals of the rocks and sands, and the birds of the air live on them while they last. The Indians of the region long looked upon the nut crop, as the Egyptians upon the overflow of the Nile--a guarantee against famine. The Indians are not so dependent on the nuts now as formerly because scattered settlements throughout the region supply other sources of food. Many nuts are still gathered, and are sold in stores from San Francisco to Denver. They look like peanuts, but are richer in oil, and if eaten raw they speedily cloy the appet.i.te. The Indians usually roast them, and frequently crush them into meal. When the harvest is ripe the Indians gather from all sides and camp during a month or more, thrash the cones from the trees with poles, extract the nuts, and keep up the operation until all present needs are supplied, and every available basket is filled for future use. The packhorses and burros of the mining country in Nevada where this pine grows, acquire a liking for the nuts. They are as nourishing as oats, and the pack animals like them better. Indians do considerable business collecting the nuts and selling them by the gunny sack to pack trains, for horse feed. A single Indian will sometimes gather thirty or forty bushels, for which he can get a dollar a bushel when he has carried them to market.
The singleleaf pine"s future will be about as its past has been, as far as can now be foreseen. Little planting will ever be done, nor is it necessary. Nature plants all that the sterile soil will support. It is of too slow growth to tempt the forester. A century is required to produce a fence post, and 200 years for a crosstie. Forest fires do little injury, for the ground is generally so bare that fire dies out of its own accord in a short distance. The tree can never be planted much for ornament. Even if it would grow outside of its dry habitat, it possesses no more beauty than a half-dead apple tree in a neglected orchard. The trunks resemble mesquite in Texas; but the Texas tree is redeemed by the beauty of its foliage in summer, while the foliage of the singleleaf pine is so pale and thin that it attracts no attention.
CAROLINA HEMLOCK (_Tsuga caroliniana_) is of far less importance than its northern neighbor which goes south along the Appalachian mountains to meet it. The two species mingle on the mountain tops from southwestern Virginia to northern Georgia. The Carolina hemlock is usually confined to alt.i.tudes 2,500 or 3,000 feet above sea level, and prefers rocky banks of streams. It does not usually occur in dense stands of even moderate size, as the northern hemlock does. A few trees in clumps or scattered solitary represent its habit of growth. Typical development of the species occurs on the headwaters of the Savannah river in South Carolina. For a long time this hemlock and its northern relative were supposed to be the same. Botanists did not formerly separate them, and the mountaineers do not generally do so now. There are several differences, however, which may be observed upon close examination, and by comparing the two species. The Carolina hemlock"s leaves have more rows of stomata and therefore are a little whiter on the under side. The leaves are also longer, and the cones are larger.
The tree does not attain the dimensions of the northern species, its average size being forty or fifty feet in height, and two or less in diameter. It is not abundant, and has never been and never can be much used for commercial purposes. It is an attractive park tree and has been widely planted.
LIMBER PINE (_Pinus flexilis_) owes its name to its long, drooping branches. It is often called white pine, Rocky Mountain white pine, western white pine, and limber twig pine. It is not the tree usually called western white pine (_Pinus monticola_), but is a high mountain species, ranging from the Rocky Mountains of Montana to western Texas; it grows also on the mountains of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California.
The upper limit of its range in the Sierra Nevadas is 12,000 feet. It descends to an alt.i.tude of only 4,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains, and forms open, scattered stands of round-topped trees of little commercial value, and is usually a.s.sociated with western yellow pine or Rocky Mountain cedar. At alt.i.tudes of 8,500 or 10,000 feet it is more stunted, and a.s.sociates with Lyall larch and other high mountain species.
Intermediate between its lower and its higher belts it produces a little merchantable lumber. The wood is light, soft, medium brittle, of slow growth and with narrow bands of summerwood. The resin pa.s.sages are large and numerous. The wood, when a choice trunk is found, resembles that of eastern white pine; but generally the trunks are inferior in size and form. The heartwood is light, clear yellow, the sapwood nearly white.
Trees range in height from thirty to fifty feet, and one to three in diameter. A sawlog ten feet long is about as much as can be had from a trunk, and of course, when compared with commercial trees, it holds a low place; but in some remote mountain regions it is the princ.i.p.al wood available, and to that extent it is of importance. When green, the wood is very heavy, and sometimes will sink. It is used for posts and in the mines. The farmer seasons posts on the stump. He peels the trees six months before cutting them. They immediately exude resin over the whole peeled surface, and the tree quickly dies. At the end of six months the trunk is seasoned, and is cut for posts. The ends are smeared with resin. Such posts have lasted twenty years with little decay. Railroads make ties of fire-killed limber pine. Charcoal burners use it also. The growing trees resist the fumes of copper smelters better than any other species a.s.sociated with it.
PARRY PINON (_Pinus quadrifolia_). The names by which this tree is known in the region where it grows indicate one of its leading features, a bearer of nuts. It is called nut pine, Parry"s nut pine, pinon, and Mexican pinon. The nuts exceed half an inch in length, are reddish-brown, and the wings narrow and small. They cannot carry the nuts far, and the species is not spreading. Reproduction takes place beneath the parent tree, and frequently the old trunk dies without having succeeded in planting a single seed to perpetuate the species. The nuts are nutritious, and are eagerly sought by birds, rodents, and larger animals, including human beings. The cones are seldom two inches long, and the leaves are little more than an inch.
They are usually in cl.u.s.ters of four, and fall the third year. The tree"s characteristics betray its environment. It is fitted for dry, sterile situations. Its abnormally large seeds provide food for the seedling until it can get its rootlets deep enough in the poor soil to get a start. The Parry pinon"s range is confined to the extreme southern part of California and to Lower California where it occupies arid mesas and low mountain slopes. It is common on Santa Rosa mountains, California, at an elevation of 5,000 feet. It is too small to be worth much for lumber, the usual height being less than thirty feet, the trunk diameter from ten to sixteen inches. The wood is medium heavy, weak, low in elasticity, but rather high in fuel value. The annual rings are very narrow, and the thin bands of summerwood are not conspicuous. It is one of the slowest-growing of the pines, and probably it is surpa.s.sed in that respect by lodgepole pine alone. Its only uses are fuel, a few fence posts, and small ranch timbers.
k.n.o.bCONE PINE (_Pinus attenuata_). This pine is known as p.r.i.c.kly-cone pine, sun-loving pine, sunny-slope pine, narrow-cone pine, and k.n.o.bcone pine. Its leaves are in cl.u.s.ters of three, and are four and five inches long. The cones are from three to six inches long. They often adhere to the branches thirty or forty years, and may become entirely overgrown and hidden by bark and wood--hence the name k.n.o.bcone. The wood is light, soft, weak, brittle; the growth is slow and the annual rings are narrow. The resin pa.s.sages are large and numerous. The average height of the mature k.n.o.bcone pine is from twenty-five to forty feet, and the trunk diameter eight to twelve inches. It grows on dry mountain regions of California and Oregon, and is not a valuable timber tree.
A little is occasionally sawed in small dimensions, but the princ.i.p.al use is for mine props. It is short lived, even when it does not fall a victim to accidents. In accordance with the provisions of nature, it prepares for early death by bearing seeds when only five or six feet high. The cones act as storing places for seed, sometimes during the whole life of the tree. Thus a k.n.o.bcone pine may hold in its tightly closed cones the seeds produced during the tree"s whole life. When death overtakes it, the cones open and scatter the seeds. The acc.u.mulated crops may total three or four pounds of seeds. Fire usually kills the trees, but the heat is generally not sufficient to burn the cones. When they open soon after the fire has pa.s.sed, they find a bared mineral soil ready to receive them. The k.n.o.bcone pine lives in adversity and usually dies by violence.
ARIZONA PINE (_Pinus arizonica_). This tree is confined to the mountains of southern Arizona at from 6,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level. It is the prevailing pine near the summit of the Santa Catalina mountains. Much of the timber is of small size and yields only inferior lumber; but when larger trunks are obtainable, the lumber grades with western yellow pine, and goes to market with it.
Arizona pine is medium light, soft, not strong, rather brittle, of slow growth, with the summerwood comparatively broad and very resinous; color, light red or often yellow, the sapwood lighter yellow or white. The leaves are in cl.u.s.ters of five and are tufted at the ends of the branches. They are from five to seven inches long, and are deciduous the third year.
DWARF JUNIPER (_Juniperus communis_) is an interesting tree because its range practically runs round the world in the north temperate and frigid zones, but in the United States the only reported use of the wood is in southern Illinois where it grows on the limestone hills and is occasionally cut for fence posts. In nearly all other parts of its range in this country it is little more than a shrub.
Some trees with a spread of limbs twenty feet across are only three or four feet high. The seeds mature slowly, not ripening until the third year; and they often hang a year or two after ripening. The wood is narrow-ringed, hard, very durable in contact with the soil, of light brown color, with pale sapwood. In Europe the aromatic fruit of this tree is used in large quant.i.ties to flavor gin, but there is no report that it has been so employed in this country. In the United States it occurs in Pennsylvania and northward, and northward from Illinois, and throughout the Rocky Mountains north of Texas. It occurs on the Pacific coast north of California. It grows from Greenland to Alaska, and through Siberia, and northern Europe.
DROOPING JUNIPER (_Juniperus flaccida_) is confined in the United States to the Chisos mountains in western Texas, but grows in Mexico. The tree attains a height of thirty feet and a diameter of one. Its name refers to its graceful branches. It has been planted in this country less than in southern Europe and northern Africa.
The bark is light cinnamon-brown, and easily separates in loose, papery scales. The lumberman will never go far to procure drooping juniper logs. They are too small, scarce, and of form too poor. The wood has the usual characteristics of the junipers which grow in western mountains. It looks more like alligator juniper than any other. In Texas it goes to the lathe to be manufactured into candlesticks, pin boxes, picture molding, and other articles of turnery.
UTAH JUNIPER (_Juniperus utahensis_) is known also as juniper, desert juniper, and western red cedar. The last name is properly applied to a different tree in Washington and Oregon. The Utah juniper occupies the great basin between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas, particularly in Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona, and Colorado. It thrives best about 8,000 feet above the sea, but descends to 5,000 feet or less. It is a desert tree, usually small, often a mere shrub, but occasionally attaining a height of twenty feet or more and a diameter of one or two. The trunk is irregular in shape, and is generally deeply fluted. The wood is light brown in color, though it varies greatly in different specimens, and even in the same tree. The sapwood is thick and nearly white. The tree has not been much used except for fence posts and fuel. The Indians of the region eat the berries raw or bake them in cakes.