The flower spray is large, but the flowers are small, imperfect, salver-form, purplish green—the fertile ones forming thick, clumsy pods that dangle in clusters, and seem to weigh down the stiff branchlets. The fresh pulp used to be made into a decoction used in homeopathic practice. The ripe seeds were used in Revolutionary times as a substitute for coffee. How the pioneer ever crushed them is a puzzle to all who have tried to break one with a nut-cracker. In China the fresh pulp of the pods of a sister species is used as we use soap.
The wood is not hard, but in other respects it resembles other locust lumber. It is sometimes used in cabinet work, being a rich, reddish brown, with pale sap-wood.
The range of the coffee tree extends from New York to Nebraska, and south through Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Oklahoma, with bottom lands as the tree's preference. Nowhere is this species common. Occasionally, it is planted as a street tree, in this country and abroad.
See [page 159]
SERVICE-BERRY IN BLOSSOM
The flowers appear in April, before the leaves
See [page 161]