The White Maple, sometimes called silver maple, is distinguished by having its leaves five-parted, and white beneath; its flowers reddish yellow, without flower-stalks. The trunk frequently divides near the ground, so as to appear like several trunks close together. These divisions diverge a little as they rise, and often at the height of from eight to twenty feet the top commences. This is generally larger in proportion to the trunk, than the top of any other tree. It blossoms earlier than the sugar maple. The fruit is larger than that of any other species: it advances with great rapidity towards perfection, ripens and falls about June in Georgia, and May in Pennsylvania. The fruit of the sugar maple does not ripen until October. The white maple is principally found on the banks of rivers, and on the banks of such only as have a clean gravelly bottom and clear water. It is most luxuriant on flats which are subject to annual inundations, and is usually the first settler on alluvial deposits. ‘The banks of the Sandy river, in Maine,’ says Michaux, ‘and those of the Connecticut in Windsor, Vermont, are the most northerly points at which I have seen the white maple. It is found more or less on all the rivers of the United States, flowing from the mountains to the Atlantic, but becomes scarce in South Carolina and Georgia. In no part of the United States is it more multiplied than in the western country, and no where is its vegetation more luxuriant than on the banks of the Ohio, and of the great rivers that empty into it. There, sometimes alone, and sometimes mingled with the willow, which is found all along these waters, it contributes singularly by its magnificent foliage to the embellishment of the scene. The brilliant white of the leaves beneath, forms a striking contrast with the bright green above, and the alternate reflection of these two surfaces in the water, heightens the beauty of this wonderful moving mirror, and aids in forming an enchanting picture, which during my long excursions in a canoe, in these regions of solitude and silence, I contemplated with unwearied admiration.’
The Red-flowering Maple is a beautiful tree, and in the swamps of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, it is found to the height of sixty or seventy feet, with a diameter of three or four. It blossoms earlier in the springthan any other tree, and flowers from the middle to the last of April. The blossoms, of a beautiful purple or deep red, unfold more than a fortnight before the leaves. This tree furnishes wood adapted to a variety of purposes; it is much used in making domestic wares and agricultural implements. Furniture of great richness and lustre is also made of it. It is not good fuel. The Mountain, Striped and Ash-leaved Maples are all beautiful trees.
Birch.—The Black Birch abounds in New England and the middle states; farther south it is confined to the summits of the Alleghanies. It often exceeds seventy feet in height. At the close of winter, the leaves, during a fortnight after their birth, are covered with a thick, silvery down, which soon after disappears. When bruised, the leaves and bark diffuse a very agreeable odor, and as they retain this property when dried and carefully preserved, they afford a pleasant infusion, with the addition of a little sugar and cream. The wood is applied to a variety of useful purposes; it is of a rosy hue, which deepens on exposure to the light. The Yellow, Canoe, White, and Red Birch are found in various localities throughout the country.
Pines.—The pines constitute a large and interesting class of American forest trees. The most valuable species is that which is known in England and the West Indies as the Georgia Pitch Pine; and which, in the United States, is variously called yellow pine, pitch pine, broom pine, southern pine, red pine, and long-leaved pine, a name which is adopted by Michaux. Towards the north, the long-leaved pine makes its appearance near Norfolk, in Virginia, where the pine-barrens begin. It seems to be especially assigned to dry sandy soils; and it is found, almost without interruption, in the lower part of Carolinas, Georgia, and the Floridas, over a tract more than six hundred miles long, from north-east to south-west, and more than a hundred miles broad, from the sea towards the mountains. Immediately beyond Raleigh, it holds almost exclusive possession of the soil, and is seen in company with other pines only on the edges of swamps, enclosed in the barrens; even there not more than one stock in a hundred is of another species, and with this exception, the long-leaved pine forms the unbroken mass of woods which covers this extensive country.
The mean stature of the long-leaved pine is sixty or seventy feet, with a uniform diameter of fifteen or sixteen inches for two thirds of this height. Some stocks, favored by local circumstances, attain much larger dimensions, particularly in East Florida. The timber is very valuable, being stronger, more compact, and more durable, than that of all the other species of pine: it is besides fine grained, and susceptible of high polish. Its uses are diversified, and its consumption great. But the value of the long-leaved pine does not reside exclusively in its wood; it supplies nearly all the resinous matter used in the United States in ship-building, with a large residue for exportation; and in this view, its place can be supplied by no other species, those which afford the same product being dispersed through the woods, or collected in inaccessible places. In the northern states, the lands, which at the commencement of their settlements were covered with pitch pine, were exhausted in twenty-five or thirty years, and for more than half a century have ceased to furnish tar. The pine-barrens are of vast extent, and are covered with trees of the forest growth;but they cannot all be rendered profitable, from the difficulty of communicating with the sea.
Among the varieties which we can only enumerate, without an attempt at description, are the New Jersey, Table Mountain, Gray, Pond, and White Pine.
Spruces.—The American Silver Fir is found in the colder regions of the states; towards the south, it is found only on the tops of the Alleghanies. It flourishes best in a moist, sandy loam. Its height rarely exceeds forty feet, with a diameter of twelve or fifteen inches. The trunk tapers from a foot in diameter at the surface of the ground to seven or eight inches at the height of six feet. When standing alone and developing itself naturally, its branches, which are numerous and thickly garnished with leaves, diminish in length in proportion to their height, and form a pyramid of perfect regularity. The bark is smooth and delicate. The leaves are six or eight lines long, and are inserted singly on the sides and on the top of the branches; they are narrow, rigid and flat, of a bright green above, and a silvery white beneath; whence probably is derived the name of the tree. The flowers appear in May, and are followed by cones of a fragrant odor, nearly cylindrical, four or five inches long, an inch in diameter, and always directed upwards. The seeds are ripe in autumn, and if permitted to hang late will fall apart and scatter themselves. The wood of the silver fir is light and slightly resinous, and the heart is yellowish.
The Hemlock Spruce inhabits a similar tract of country, though moist ground appears not to be the most favorable to its growth. It arrives at the height of seventy or eighty feet, with a circumference of six or nine feet, and is uniform for two thirds of its length. The White and Black Spruce are varieties of this genus.
Cypresses.—The Cypress is a very interesting tree, from its extraordinary dimensions, and the varied application of its wood. Its northern boundary is Indian river, in Delaware, in latitude about thirty-nine degrees. In proceeding southward, it becomes more abundant in the swamps, and in Louisiana those parts of the marshes where the cypress grows almost alone are called cypress swamps, and they sometimes occupy thousands of acres. In the swamps of the southern states and the Floridas, on whose deep, miry soil a new layer of vegetable mould is every year deposited by floods, the cypress attains its utmost developement. The largest stocks are one hundred and twenty feet in height, and from twenty-five to forty feet in circumference, above the conical base, which at the surface of the earth is three or four times as large as the continued diameter of the trunk: in felling them, the negroes are obliged to raise themselves upon scaffolds five or six feet from the ground. The base is usually hollow for three fourths of its bulk.
Amidst the pine forests and savannas of the Floridas is seen here and there a bog filled with cypresses, whose squalid appearance, when they exceed eighteen or twenty feet in height, proves how much they are affected by the barrenness of a soil which differs from the surrounding only by a layer of vegetable mould, a little thicker upon the quartzous sand. The summit of the cypress is not pyramidical like that of the spruce, but is widely spread and even depressed upon old trees. The foliage is open, light, and of a fresh agreeable tint; each leaf is four or five inches long, andconsists of two parallel rows of leaflets upon a common stem. The leaflets are small, fine, and somewhat arching, with the convex side outwards. In autumn they change from a light green to a dull red, and are shed soon after. This tree blooms in Carolina about the first of February.