Part 31 (2/2)

* Leafy bracts of fruit forming a bottle-shaped involucre 2.

* Leafy bracts not bottle-shaped. (=A.=)

=A.= Involucre much longer than the nut 1.

=A.= Involucre but little longer than the nut 3.

[Ill.u.s.tration: C. Americana.]

1. =Corylus Americana=, Walt. (WILD HAZELNUT.) Leaves roundish heart-shaped, pointed, doubly serrate; stipules broad at base, acute, and sometimes cut-toothed; twigs and shoots often hairy. Involucre of the fruit open to the globose nut, the two leaf-like bracts very much cut-toothed at the margin and thick and leathery at the base. Merely a shrub, 5 to 6 ft. high; quite common throughout.

[Ill.u.s.tration: C. rostrata.]

2. =Corylus rostrata=, Ait. (BEAKED HAZELNUT.) Leaves but little or not at all heart-shaped; stipules linear-lanceolate. The involucre, extending beyond the nut in a bract like a bottle, is covered with stiff, short hairs. Shrub, 4 to 5 ft. high. Wild in the same region as Corylus Americana, but not so abundant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: C. Avellana.]

3. =Corylus Avellana=, L. (EUROPEAN HAZEL. FILBERT.) Leaves roundish-cordate, pointed, doubly serrate, nearly sessile, with ovate-oblong, obtuse stipules; shoots bristly. Involucre of the fruit not much larger than the large nut (1 in.), and deeply cleft. A small tree or shrub, 6 to 12 ft. high, from Europe; several varieties in cultivation.

GENUS =86. oSTRYA.=

Slender trees with very hard wood, brownish, furrowed bark, and deciduous, alternate, simple, exstipulate, straight-veined leaves.

Flowers inconspicuous, in catkins. Fruit hop-like in appearance, at the ends of side shoots of the season, hanging on through the autumn.

[Ill.u.s.tration: O. Virginica.]

1. =ostrya Virginica=, Willd. (IRON-WOOD. AMERICAN HOP-HORNBEAM.) Leaves oblong-ovate, taper-pointed, very sharply doubly serrate, downy beneath, with 11 to 15 straight veins on each side of the midrib; buds acute. The hop-like fruit 2 to 3 times as long as wide; full grown and pendulous, 1 to 3 in. long, in August, when it adds greatly to the beauty of the tree. A small, rather slender tree, 30 to 50 ft. high, with the bark on old trees somewhat furrowed; wood white and very hard and heavy; common in rich woods, and occasionally cultivated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: O. vulgaris.]

2. =ostrya vulgaris=, Willd. (EUROPEAN HOP-HORNBEAM.) This species from Europe is much like the American one, but has longer, more slender, more pendulous fruit-cl.u.s.ters. Occasionally cultivated.

GENUS =87. CARPNUS.=

Trees or tall shrubs with alternate, simple, straight-veined leaves, and smooth and close gray bark. Flowers in drooping catkins, the sterile flowers in dense cylindric ones, and the fertile flowers in a loose terminal one forming an elongated, leafy-bracted cl.u.s.ter with many, several-grooved, small nuts, hanging on the tree till late in the autumn.

[Ill.u.s.tration: C. Caroliniana.]

1. =Carpnus Caroliniana=, Walt. (AMERICAN HORNBEAM. BLUE OR WATER BEECH.) Leaves ovate-oblong, pointed, sharply doubly serrate, soon nearly smooth. Fruit with the scales obliquely halberd-shaped and cut-toothed, in. long, nuts 1/8 in. long. A tree or tall shrub, 10 to 25 ft. high, with a peculiarly ridged trunk; the close, smooth gray bark and the leaves are much like those of the Beech. The wood is very hard and whitish. Common along streams; sometimes cultivated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: C. Betulus.]

2. =Carpnus Betulus=, L. (EUROPEAN HORNBEAM.) This cultivated species is quite similar to the American, but can be distinguished by the scales of the fruit, which are wholly halberd-shaped, having the basal lobes nearly equal in size, as shown in the cut; while the American species has scales only half halberd-shaped.

GENUS =88. QUeRCUS.=

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