The FLOWERS appear in early spring, long before the leaves unfold. The FRUIT ripens in the spring about the time the leaves appear; it is winged, tipped with two, small, incurved arms or beaks; oblong, reddish-brown; about ⅓ inch long, with a long, slender pedicel at the base, and covered with white hairs. The WOOD is very similar to that of the other elms—heavy, hard, and difficult to split. It is occasionally used for hubs and mauls. Formerly, rope made of the inner bark was used for binding the covers to cotton bales. CEDAR ELM Ulmus crassifolia Nutt. Cedar elm is distributed widely over the state, near streams, in deep rich soil, and on dry, limestone hills. It is the most common elm tree of Texas, extending to the Pecos River. It forms a tree up to 75 feet high with a tall straight trunk 2 to 3 feet in diameter, and with an inversely conic round-topped head and drooping branches. It reaches its largest size on the bottomlands of the Guadalupe and Trinity Rivers. [Illustration: CEDAR ELM (Illustrations, three-fourths natural size)] The BARK is light-brown tinged with red, deeply fissured, with flattened, scaly ridges. The young twigs are finely velvet and reddish, sometimes developing thin corky wings which continue around the leaf nodes. The LEAVES are small, the largest less than 2 inches long, often double toothed and usually rather blunt at the tip. Their upper surface is dark green and rough, while the lower surface and petiole are hairy. The FLOWERS, which appear in the autumn, are in small short-pedicelled clusters at the axils of the leaves. The FRUIT, an oval-shaped samara slightly more than ¼ inch long, is hairy all over, especially on the edges and is deeply notched at the tip. The WOOD is reddish-brown, brittle, and with a thick layer of lighter colored sapwood. The wood is sometimes used in the manufacture of hubs, furniture, and fencing. SLIPPERY ELM (Red Elm) Ulmus rubra Muhl. Slippery elm, or red elm, is found in the eastern and southern parts of the state as far as the upper Guadalupe and Leon Rivers in Kerr and Comal Counties. It is found principally on the banks of streams and on low hillsides in rich soil. It is a tree of small to moderate size, but noticeably wide-spreading. It is usually less than 40 feet in height and 6 inches in diameter, although trees of larger dimensions are occasionally found. The BARK on the trunk is frequently 1 inch thick, dark grayish-brown on the surface, uniformly tan or cream colored in cross section, and broken by shallow fissures into flat ridges. The inner bark is used to some extent for medicinal purposes and, when chewed, affords a slippery mucilaginous substance, whence the tree gets its name.