Part 37 (2/2)

Probably no other wood in the United States is as systematically cheated out of its just credit as this one. Many of the oaks are seldom given their proper names, but they are listed as oak in sawmill output, and thus the genus, if not the species is given credit. But willow is almost totally ignored. The United States census in 1910 credited to all the willow lumber in this country an amount less than a million and a half feet; yet a single mill in Louisiana, and not a large mill at that, cut and sold four times that much during that year. The wood was cut by hundreds of other mills, some a few logs only, others considerable quant.i.ties.

It is sold for various purposes, and much of it goes as cottonwood. In some instances it is called brown cottonwood. Probably ninety per cent is made into boxes, but it has many other uses. It is cut into excelsior, made into rotary cut veneer, and finds place in the manufacture of furniture; it is a common woodenware material; slack coopers make barrels of it; and it is turned for baseball bats.

The supply of black willow in this country is not small. It is usually found in wet situations along streams. Sometimes islands and low flats are taken possession of and pure stands result. The growth is sometimes phenomenal. Trunks may add nearly or quite an inch to their diameter per year when conditions are exceptionally favorable. Instances, apparently well authenticated, are reported of abandoned fields along the Mississippi, which in sixty years grew 100,000 feet of willow per acre.

LONGSTALK WILLOW (_Salix longipes_) sometimes grows to a height of thirty feet with a diameter of six or eight inches. Its range extends from Maryland to Texas, and is at its best in the Ozark region of southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas.

ALMONDLEAF WILLOW (_Salix amygdaloides_) grows across northern United States and southern Canada from New York to Oregon, and occurs as far south as Missouri and Ohio, and is abundant in the lower Ohio valley. At its best it is seventy feet high and two feet in diameter. The wood is light, soft, and the heartwood is brown.

SMOOTHLEAF WILLOW (_Salix laevigata_) attains a diameter of one foot and a height of forty or fifty. It is a Pacific coast tree, occurring in California on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas up to an alt.i.tude of 3,000 feet. It is known as black willow. The wood is pale reddish-brown.

SILVERLEAF WILLOW (_Salix sessilifolia_) looks like longleaf willow, and though usually a shrub it sometimes is twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. It grows from the mouth of the Columbia river to southern California.

YEWLEAF WILLOW (_Salix taxifolia_) ranges from western Texas, through southern Arizona into Mexico and Central America. Trees are occasionally forty feet high and more than one foot in diameter. A little fuel and fence posts are cut from this willow.

BEBB WILLOW (_Salix bebbiana_) is nearly always shrubby, but occasionally reaches a trunk diameter of six or eight inches and a height of twenty feet. Its northern limit lies within the Arctic circle, its southern in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and Arizona. West of Hudson bay it forms almost impenetrable thickets, and in Colorado it ascends mountains to elevations of 10,000 feet.

GLAUCOUS WILLOW (_Salix discolor_), commonly known as silver or p.u.s.s.y willow, ranges from Nova Scotia to Manitoba, and southward to Delaware, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. It is one of the best known willows within its range, on account of its flowers which are among the earliest of the season, and very showy.

The largest specimens are scarcely twenty-five feet high and twelve inches in diameter.

MACKENZIE WILLOW (_Salix cordata mackenzieana_) is not abundant, and is one of the smallest of the tree willows. It is nearly always a shrub. Its range extends from California nearly to the Arctic circle, where it occurs in gravelly soil on the borders of mountain streams.

MISSOURI WILLOW (_Salix missouriensis_) is so named because it occurs princ.i.p.ally in Missouri, but its range extends into Kansas and Iowa. It is occasionally forty feet high and a foot in diameter.

It is used for fence posts.

BIGELOW WILLOW (_Salix lasiolepis_) is generally called white willow on account of its gray bark. It occurs in California and Arizona, and at its best it is twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. Some use is made of it as fuel, where other wood is scarce.

NUTTALL WILLOW (_Salix nuttallii_), called also mountain willow in Montana, ranges from British America, east of the Rocky Mountains, to southern California. Its usual height is twenty or twenty-five feet, and its diameter six or eight inches. In southern California it grows 10,000 feet above sea level.

HOOKER WILLOW (_Salix hookeriana_) occurs in the coast region from Vancouver island to southern Oregon, and varies in height from a sprawling shrub to a height of thirty feet and a diameter of one.

Little use is made of it.

SILKY WILLOW (_Salix sitchensis_), known also as Sitka willow, ranges from Alaska to southern California. The largest specimens are twenty-five feet high and ten inches in diameter. Trunks are largely sapwood and are of little commercial importance.

BROADLEAF WILLOW (_Salix amplifolia_), known also as feltleaf willow, was discovered in Alaska in 1899. The leaves are woolly. The largest trees rarely exceed a height of thirty feet and a diameter of six inches. Its range extends to the valley of the Mackenzie river.

A number of foreign willows have become naturalized in the United States. Among them is white willow (_Salix alba_), which grows to large size, probably as large as black willow; crack willow (_Salix fragilis_), so named on account of the brittleness of its twigs; and weeping willow (_Salix babylonica_). The botanical name is based on the supposition that it was this willow, growing by the rivers near Babylon, on which the captive Hebrews hung their harps. Basket willow is planted for its osiers in several eastern states. It is not a single species, but a group of varieties developed by cultivation.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

HARDY CATALPA

[Ill.u.s.tration: HARDY CATALPA]

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