see it clearly
Hornbeam Tree
Its general distribution is not wide, being confined to the temperate parts of Western Asia and of Europe, its northern limit being stated at 55 deg or 56 deg, though it occurs somewhat north of this in the Island of Gothland.
The Hornbeam, according to Sir J. E. Smith, is generally "a rigid tree, of humble growth, but when standing by itself, allowed to take its natural form, will make a much handsomer tree than most people are aware of." It does not often exceed forty or fifty feet in height, or from three to four feet in the girth of the trunk. A carefully-grown seedling, however, which has never been lopped, may grow into a fine, straight-stemmed, round-headed tree, seventy feet in height and nine feet in circumference, resembling a Beech, but having its more slender boughs compacted into a closer outline.
As, however, the Hornbeam is peculiarly tolerant of the pruning-knife, and its branches yield excellent firewood, it is seldom allowed to become a timber tree, and almost all the old trees of the species in this country are pollards. In these the trunk is generally flattened and twisted, as though composed of several stems grown together, or "fasciated." This, in fact, does occur, as also does "inosculation," or the union above of branches which are separate below, a mode of growth more peculiarly characteristic of the Beech, a tree which the Hornbeam resembles in not a few particulars.
The flattened or irregular outline of the stem is, however, due, in part at least, to an irregularity in its internal structure, the transverse structures known as medullary rays, being exceptionally large and wide apart, so as to break up the annual rings of wood into local patches, as it were, accumulating more in one part than in others.
It is never a very fast-growing tree, lengthening from twelve to eighteen inches per annum for the first ten years of its life, but increasing far more slowly as it gets old, and not being apparently very long-lived.
The bark, which has tonic properties, is smooth, and of a silvery light-gray color, much resembling that of the Beech, and affording a pleasing contrast to the green or russet of the leaves in summer or autumn. These last are of a hazel-green color, oval--or, more precisely, "ellipticovate"--in outline, from one to two inches long, with a margin notched with serrated teeth, a distinct and permanent point, and numerous parallel, transverse, hairy ribs projecting on their under surfaces. They thus somewhat resemble those of the Elm, as was pointed out by Gerard, for which reason the Hornbeam is also known as "Yoke Elm." They are, however, smoother, and of a lighter and more olive green, and, being folded in the bud into numerous charming plaits along their lateral veins, still further excuse the common mistake of the tyro, or casual observer, who generally confuses the white stems of the Hornbeam with those of the Beech. From Beech leaves, however, those of the Hornbeam are distinguishable by their lighter and browner color, by want of gloss, by the greater prominence of the veins on their lower surface, by the permanence of the pointed and toothed outline, which is lost in the older leaves of the Beech, and, as a rule, by remaining longer on the tree. They appear generally in April, furnished with large, deciduous stipules, of a lighter color and unplaited surface, and in autumn they wither to a warm copper brown, remaining on the tree, especially if pollarded, until the following spring. This retention of the dead leaves by the shoots of pollards, which is seen also in the case of the Oak, is a remarkable, and, as yet, unexplained fact.
About a month after the unfolding of the leaf-buds the catkins make their appearance. These, as in all the members of the great order Cupulifera, to which the genus Carpinus belongs, are "monoecious," the staminate, or male catkins, being produced in the axils of the leaves of the previous year--i.e., in the angles between these leaves and the stem--but the female, or fruit-bearing ones, terminating the young shoot. Both kinds of catkin are pendulous, and vary in length from one to two inches each; but after fertilization the fruit-bearing axes elongate considerably.
The Hornbeam agrees with the Hazel in having no perianth round its male flowers, this being one of the characters by which they are separated, under the name Corylacea, from the Oaks, Beeches, and Chestnuts, or Quercinea. The male catkin consists of numerous over-lapping, pale-colored scales, or bracts, beneath each of which the minute observer will find a group of twelve or more stamens, each of which is forked, and bears two anthers ending in a tuft of hair. These male spikelets, as is usually the case with similar organs, fall off entire as soon as they have discharged their function--i.e., as soon as they have liberated the pollen.
The female catkin well illustrates the structure, at once simple and elaborate, of the flower-buds of most of our trees. In the axil of each bract of some trees there is one central flower, on either side of which are two smaller bracts, or "bracteoles," and in the axils of each of these there is a lateral flower, which also is flanked by two secondary bracteoles. In the Hornbeam the female catkin bears a number of bracts, narrower and more pointed than those of the male flowers, and in the axils of each of them are the two lateral florets of the typical catkin above described with the two bracteoles, and four secondary bracteoles, but no central floret. It is these bracteoles which form the conspicuous three-lobed "cupules" when the fruit is ripe.
The catkins naturally remain on the tree until the fruit is ripe--that is, until October. They are then sometimes as much as four inches in length, the pale, buff-green, three-lobed, leaf-like cupules, resembling miniature Plane leaves, being each an inch or more in length from its point to its base. The fruits occur in pairs at the base of these scales, and are small, olive-green, roughly three-sided nuts, resembling Spanish chestnuts, or Beech-masts, about a quarter of an inch long, crowned by the remains of the perianth, and each containing a single seed. The effect of the pale-green fruit clusters among the somewhat sombre foliage that, in summer, hides much of the silvery bark, is distinctly pleasing.
Gerard, in 1597, gives, in his "Herball," a very accurate figure of the Hornbeam in fruit, and a description of the tree and its name, at once so accurate and so characteristic, that it may well be quoted at some length:--
"Betulus, or the Hornebeam tree, grows great, and very like vnto the Elme, or Wich Hasel tree, hauing a great body, the wood or timber whereof is better for arrowes and shaftes, pulleies for mills, and such like deuises, than Elme or Wich Hazell; for in time it waxeth so hard, that the toughnesse and hardnesse of it may be rather compared vnto horn than vnto wood, and therefore it was called Hornebeame, or Hardbeame; the leaues hereof are like the Elme, sauing that they be tenderer; among those hang certain triangled things, vpon which be found knaps, or little heads of the bignesse of Ciches, in which is contained the fruit or seed; the root is strong and thicke. . . . . The Hornebeam tree is called in Greek Suyia, which is as if you should say Coniugalis, or belonging to the yoke, because it serueth well to make Suyia of, in Latine, Juga, yokes wherewith oxen are yoked together, which are also euen at this time made thereof . . . and therefore it may be Englished Yoke Elme." . . .
From this passage, Yoke-elm would seem to be one of Gerard's many coinages; but the scientific name Carpinus has also been derived from the Keltic "car," wood, and "pen" or "pin," a head, though another suggestion is the Latin "carpentum," a chariot, the Swedish "karm," which closely approaches "charme," the French name for the tree. The wood, which is normally white, hard, tough, rather cross-grained, strong, light, and flexible, is also used for other agricultural implements, for the screws of presses, wooden cog-wheels, and tool-handles, and furnishes an excellent gunpowder charcoal. The modern German name for the tree, "Hainbuche," refers to another use to which Hornbeam has long been put. As it will stand a great amount of pruning, so long as it is not done in spring, when the tree is likely to suffer from the bleeding that results from the rising sap, it is a favorite tree for hedge-rows, known in French as "charmilles"; and since the dead leaves remain late on the branches, rustling crisply in the autumn gales, but resisting all the buffetings of the wind, it is largely used for this purpose in nurseries of seedling forest trees, and elsewhere where shelter is required, and used formerly to be employed in mazes and other geometrical devices. Evelyn ranks it foremost among deciduous trees for that purpose, reserving the claims of his favorite evergreen, the Holly :--"In the single row," he writes, "it makes the noblest and stateliest hedges for long walks in gardens or parks of any tree whatsoever whose leaves are deciduous." Flourishing, too, on soil too stiff for many kinds of trees, the Hornbeam is useful as a nurse to other species, and as cover for game. Deer will not touch it, but hares, rabbits, and especially field-mice, are very fond of its young leaf-shoots and foliage.
But, perhaps, the beauty of this tree when allowed free growth has not been sufficiently recognized as a reason for planting it. The decrepit specimens in Epping Forest, that have been ruthlessly and repeatedly polled, are merely grotesque, for such masses of disease cannot justly be regarded as beautiful. When felled, their wood is stained of a black color, and is of inferior quality; and when, as during the last few years, no longer lopped, they send up long ungainly branches, which, from the crowding, take a vertical direction, bearing only a few leaves at the top. When, on the other hand, they have been judiciously thinned, their boughs sweep down gracefully to the ground, well covered with leaves, with nearly as much beauty as those of Lime or Beech. Such trees, once pollarded, can never entirely regain the charm of the naturally round, compact head; but their feathery sprays, reaching to the very turf, form a decidedly desirable feature in the woodland glade or wild shrubbery.