Genus Carpinus, L. (Hornbeam)

Leaves - simple; alternate; edge very sharply and quite irregularly and unevenly toothed. Outline - long egg-shape, or reverse long egg-shape. Apex - taper-pointed. Base - rounded or slightly heart-shaped. Leaf/Stem - about one half inch long, slender and smooth, or slightly hairy. Leaf - usually three to four inches long, and about half as wide, but with many smaller leaves of varying size on the same branch; nearly smooth, slightly hairy on the straight and distinct ribs and in their angles. Bark - of trunk, a deep bluish-gray or slate; smooth, but often marked up and down with irregular ridges, which run from each side of the lower branches. The new shoots are somewhat hairy, and brownish or purple; the older branchlets, an ashy-gray color, with a pearly luster. Fruit - in loose drooping cluster, with leaf-like scales that are strongly three-lobed and placed in pairs base to base. October. Found - along streams and in swamps. Quite common North, South, and West; northward often only as a low shrub. General Information - A small tree or shrub, usually ten to twenty feet high, but in the southern Alleghany Mountains sometimes reaching a height of fifty feet. Its wood is white and very compact and strong.

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