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to the first limb, which grew not more than 25 feet from the extreme summit of the tree.”
Though I was not fortunate enough to find any such trees standing, when I visited the remains of this forest in 1904, yet I saw enough to make me wish that an area of this unique forest could be preserved to show what the virgin forests of the Wabash valley were once like; for there is no other part of the temperate world where so many species of hardwood trees grow to such a size as they formerly did here.
This species appears to have been introduced about the beginning of the nine- teenth century ; several trees, 10 to 15 feet in height, being mentioned by Loudon.
At Kew it appears to be straighter and more vigorous in growth than C. occidentalis; and all the specimens have a few branches mainly in the upper and inner parts of the tree, which bear very large leaves. One of the trees, growing on the walk behind the Aroid House, is 38 feet high by 3½ feet in girth. (H.J.E.)
CELTIS MISSISSIPPIENSIS
- Celtis mississippiensis, Bosc, Dict. Agric. x. 41 (1810); Sargent, Silva N. Amer. vii. 71, t. 318 (1895), and Trees N. Amer. 300 (1905).
- Celtis levigata, Willdenow, Berlin Baums. 81 (1811); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1420 (1838).
- Celtis occidentalis, Linnæus, var. integrifolia, Nuttall, Gen. i. 202 (1818).
- Celtis occidentalis, Sargent, Forest Trees N. Amer., 10th Census U.S. ix. 125 (1884) (in part); and Garden and Forest, iii. 39 (in part), ff. 9, 10, 11 (1890).
A tree, attaining in America, 80 feet high and 9 feet in girth. Bark bluish- green, and covered with prominent excrescences. Young branchlets glabrous. Leaves (Plate 267, Fig. 9), up to 3 inches long and 1¼ inch wide, ovate-lanceolate or lanceolate, unequal and rounded or broadly cuneate at the base, long-acuminate at the apex ; margin usually entire, occasionally irregularly serrate towards the apex ; light green and glabrous, except for slight axil tufts at the base beneath ; petiole, about ½ inch, glabrous, Fruiting-pedicels, about ¾ inch. Drupes, ovoid, ⅛ to ¼ inch, bright orange red, with thin dry flesh and a smooth light brown stone.
This species is distributed from southern Indiana and Illinois, through Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama to Florida, and through Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas to Nuevo Leon. It is also a native of the Bermudas. It is very abundant and of its largest size in the basin of the lower Ohio River, a tree measured by Schneck in Richland County, Illinois, being 95 feet high and 5½ feet in girth. Here it is often associated with C. crassifolia, from which it may be distinguished" by its usually smaller size, shorter trunk, entire leaves, and bright orange-red fruit. It is the most common species in Kentucky and Tennessee; but is rare in the Gulf States. Though apparently found in Texas and Nuevo Leon, it is replaced to the
1 Elwes noticed that the wrinkled bark of this species easily distinguished it in the forest from C. crassifolia.