Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol03B.djvu/278

606 becoming 2 to 3 inches long at the opening of the bud. Axillary buds, 3 inch long, with four to five scales visible externally. Branchlets light reddish brown, glabrous towards the tip, covered below with a short dense pubescence. Leaves (Plate 203, Fig. 4) not fragrant, 15 to 22 inches long. Leaflets seven to nine, upper three or five obovate-oblong, lower one or two pairs lanceolate; margin ciliate, the cilia more numerous towards the base; upper surface glabrous, shining; lower surface with scattered short stellate tomentum; nerves in upper pair of leaflets more than twenty pairs; rachis with slight pubescence near the insertion of the leaflets, elsewhere glabrous.

Staminate catkins, glabrous, pedunculate in threes at the base of the current year’s shoot. Fruit, solitary or in pairs, 2 inches long; husk downy or glabrous, hard and woody, ¼ to ⅓ inch thick; nut compressed, four- to six-ridged, with a hard bony shell ; seed light brown, sweet.

This species usually grows on deep rich alluvial soil, which is inundated for several weeks in the year, and is one of the commonest trees in the great river swamps of Central Missouri and of the Ohio basin. It is rare and local east of the Alleghany Mountains, being occasionally met with in New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina; and extends through the central states from South - Eastern Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana, southward to Kansas, Indian Territory, Arkansas, and Tennessee.

It is exceedingly rare in cultivation’ in England, the largest tree we are acquainted with being one in Tortworth Churchyard, which bore a few nuts in 1905, when it was about 30 feet high by 1 foot 8 inches in girth. There are small plants growing at Hildenley Hall, Yorkshire, and at Grayswood, Haslemere.

A tree attaining in America 100 feet in height and 9 feet in girth, but usually much smaller. Bark grey, slightly ridged by shallow irregular interrupted fissures, and ultimately covered by closely appressed scales. Terminal buds broadly ovoid, ½ to ¾ inch long, of 10 to 12 imbricated scales; outer scales, usually deciduous in winter, dark brown, keeled, apiculate, pubescent, glandular; inner scales silky

1 Loudon states that it was introduced in 1804; but he appears to have been only acquainted in 1838 with small plants growing at the Horticultural Society’s Garden, Loddiges’ Nursery, and White Knights. None of these now survive.