Among the resinous trees of the United States, the White Cedar is one of the most interesting for the varied utility of its wood. North of the river Connecticut, it is rare and little employed in the arts. In the southern states, it is not met with beyond the river Santee, but it is found, though not abundantly, on the Savannah: it is multiplied only within these limits and to the distance of fifty miles from the ocean. The white cedar is seventy or eighty feet high, and sometimes more than three feet in diameter. When the trees are close and compressed, the trunk is straight, perpendicular and destitute of branches to the height of fifty or sixty feet. When cut, a yellow transparent resin of an agreeable odor exudes, of which a few ounces could hardly be collected in a summer from a tree of three feet in circumference. The foliage is evergreen: each leaf is a little branch numerously subdivided, and composed of small, acute, imbricated scales.
The White Ash is one of the most interesting among the American species for the qualities of its wood, and the most remarkable for the rapidity of its growth and for the beauty of its foliage. A cold climate seems most congenial to its nature. It is everywhere called White Ash, probably from the color of its bark, by which it is easily distinguished. The situations most favorable to this tree are the banks of rivers and the edges and surrounding acclivities of swamps. The white ash sometimes attains the height of eighty feet, with a diameter of three feet, and is one of the largest trees of the United States. The trunk is perfectly straight and often undivided to the height of more than forty feet. On large stocks the bark is deeply furrowed, and divided into small squares from one to three inches in diameter. The leaves are twelve or fourteen inches long, opposite and composed of three or four pair of leaflets surmounted by an odd one. The leaflets are three or four inches long, about two inches broad, of a delicate texture and an undulated surface. Early in the spring they are covered with a light down, which gradually disappears, and at the approach of summer they are perfectly smooth, of a light green color above and whitish beneath. It puts forth white or greenish flowers in the month of May, which are succeeded by seeds that are eighteen lines long, cylindrical near the base, and gradually flattened into a wing, the extremity of which is slightly notched. They are united in bunches four or five inches long, and are ripe in the beginning of autumn. The shoots of the two preceding years are of a bluish gray color and perfectly smooth: the distance between their buds sufficiently proves the vigor of their growth.
Elm.—The White Elm inhabits an extensive tract of the states, being found from Nova Scotia to the extremity of Georgia. It is also found on the banks of the western rivers; growing in low, moist and substantial soils. In the middle states, this tree stretches to a great height, but does not approach the magnificence of vegetation which it displays in the countries peculiarly adapted to its growth. In clearing the primitive forests, a few stocks are sometimes left standing; insulated in this manner, it appears in all its majesty, towering to the height of eighty or one hundred feet, with a trunk four or five feet in diameter, regularly shaped, naked, and insensiblydiminishing to the height of sixty or seventy feet, where it divides itself into two or three primary branches. This species differs from the red and European elm in its flowers and seeds; it blooms in the month of April, previous to the unfolding of the leaves; the flowers are very small, of a purple color, supported by short, slender footstalks, and united in bunches at the extremity of the branches. The Wahoo and the Red Elm are interesting species.
The American Chesnut sometimes attains the height of seventy or eighty feet, with a circumference of fifteen or sixteen feet. Though this tree nearly resembles that of Europe in its general appearance, its foliage, its fruit and the properties of its wood, it is treated by botanists as a distinct species. Its leaves are six or seven inches long, one and a half broad, coarsely toothed, of an elongated oval form, of a fine, brilliant color and of a firm texture, with prominent parallel nerves beneath. It flowers in June. The fruit is spherical, covered with fine prickles, and stored with two dark brown seeds or nuts, about as large as the end of the finger. They are smaller and sweeter than the wild chesnuts of Europe. They are ripe about the middle of October. The wood is strong, elastic and capable of enduring the succession of dryness and moisture.
Buttonwood or Sycamore.—Among trees with deciduous leaves, none in the temperate zones, either in the old or new continent, equal the dimensions of the planes. The species which we are about to describe is not less remarkable for its amplitude, and for its magnificent appearance, than the plane of Asia, whose majestic form and extraordinary size were so much celebrated by the ancients. In the Atlantic states, this tree is commonly known by the name of Buttonwood, and sometimes in Virginia, by that of Water Beach. On the banks of the Ohio, and in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, it is most frequently called Sycamore, and by some persons Plane Tree. This tree, in no part of the United States, is more abundant and vigorous than along the rivers of Pennsylvania and Virginia; though in the more fertile valleys of the west, its vegetation is still more luxuriant, especially on the banks of the Ohio and of the rivers that flow into it.
On the margin of the great rivers of the west, the buttonwood is constantly found to be the loftiest and largest tree of the United States. Often with a trunk of several feet in diameter, it begins to ramify at the height of sixty or seventy feet, near the summit of other trees; and often the base divides itself into several trunks, equally vigorous and superior in diameter to any of the surrounding trees. On a little island in the Ohio, fifteen miles above the mouth of the Muskingum, Michaux mentions a buttonwood which, at five feet above the ground, was forty feet and four inches in circumference, and consequently more than thirteen feet in diameter. The American species is generally thought, in Europe, to possess a richer foliage, and to afford a deeper shade than the Asiatic plane: its leaves are of a beautiful green, alternate, from five to fifteen inches broad, and formed with more open angles than those of the plane of the eastern continent.
Beech.—The species of Red Beech is almost exclusively confined to the north-eastern parts of the United States. In the state of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, it is so abundant as often to constitute extensive forests, the finest of which grow on fertile, level or gently sloping lands which are proper for the culture of corn. The red beech equals the white species in diameter, but not in height; and as it ramifies nearer the earthand is more numerously divided, it has a more massy summit and the appearance of more tufted foliage. Its leaves are equally brilliant, a little larger and thicker, and have longer teeth. Its fruit is of the same form, but is only half as large, and is garnished with firmer and less numerous points.
The White Beech is one of the tallest and most majestic trees of the American forests. It grows the most abundantly in the middle and western states. On the banks of the Ohio, the white beech attains the height of more than one hundred feet, with a circumference of eight to eleven feet. In the forests, where these trees vegetate in a deep and fertile soil, their roots sometimes extend to a great distance even with the surface, and being entangled so as to cover the ground, they embarrass the steps of the traveller and render the land peculiarly difficult to clear. This tree is more slender and less branchy than the red beech; but its foliage is superb, and its general appearance magnificent.
Poplar or Tulip Tree.—This tree, which surpasses most others of North America in height and in the beauty of its foliage and of its flowers, is one of the most interesting from the numerous and useful applications of its wood.
In the Atlantic states, especially at a considerable distance from the sea, tulip trees are often seen seventy, eighty and one hundred feet in height, with a diameter of eighteen inches to three feet. But the western states appear to be the natural soil of this magnificent tree, and here it displays its most powerful vegetation. M. Michaux mentions a tulip tree, near Louisville, on the Ohio, which at five feet from the ground was twenty-two feet six inches in circumference, and whose elevation he judged to be from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and forty feet. The flowers bloom in June or July. They are large, brilliant, and on detached trees very numerous, variegated with different colors: they have an agreeable odor, and produce a fine effect. The fruit is composed of a great number of thin, narrow scales, attached to a common axis, and forming a cone two or three inches in length. Each cone consists of sixty or seventy seeds, of which never more than a third part are productive. For ten years before the tree begins to yield fruit, almost all the seeds are unproductive, and on large trees, those from the highest branches are the best.