WITCH HAZEL (_Hamamelis virginiana_) is a cousin to red gum, but there is small resemblance. It is known as winter bloom, snapping hazel, and spotted alder. Its range extends from Nova Scotia to Nebraska, Texas, and Florida. It reaches its largest size among the southern Appalachian mountains where the extreme height is sometimes forty feet, with a diameter of eighteen inches; but few people have ever seen a witch hazel that large. It is usually fifteen or twenty feet high and three or four inches in diameter. The wood is much like that of red gum, being diffuse-porous with obscure medullary rays, and a thin line of summerwood. It is of little commercial use; in fact, no report has been found that a single foot of it has ever been used for any purpose. Yet it is a most interesting little tree. It blooms in the fall, sometimes as late as the middle of November. Its rusty summer foliage turns yellow in autumn, and as the leaves begin to fall, the tree bursts into delicately-scented golden flowers, the most visible part of each consisting of four petals which float out like streamers. At the same time that flowers are scenting the air, the seeds are discharging. A full year is required to ripen them; and when dry, cold weather comes, the contraction of their envelopes shoots them with sufficient force to send them fifteen or twenty feet. They depend on neither wings, birds, nor squirrels to scatter them. The origin of the name witch hazel is disputed; but the person who examines the open-topped button which holds the black seeds, and notes the fantastic resemblance to a weasen face, will feel satisfied that he can guess the origin of the name. The tree’s bark is used for medicine, in extracts and gargles. [Illustration] BLACK GUM [Illustration: BLACK GUM] BLACK GUM (_Nyssa Sylvatica_) Black gum grows from the Kennebec river in Maine to Tampa bay, Florida; westward to southern Ontario and southern Michigan; Southward through Missouri, as far as the Brazos river in Texas. The names by which it is known in different regions are black gum, sour gum, tupelo, pepperidge, wild pear tree, gum, and yellow gum. The leaves of black gum are simple and alternate; not serrate. They are attached by very short petioles, which are fuzzy when young; they are a rich, brilliant green above and lighter below; rather thick, with prominent midrib. As early as the latter part of August the leaves commence to turn a gorgeous red. The flowers are greenish and inconspicuous, growing in thick clusters, the staminate ones small and plentiful, the pistillate ones larger. They bloom in April, May or June. The fruit of black gum is a drupe about one and a half inches long; inside of it is a rough, oval pit; the pulp is acrid until mellowed by frost.