BALM OF GILEAD
(Populus Balsamifera)
This tree is known in different regions by the following names: Balsam, balm of Gilead, cottonwood, poplar, balsam poplar, and tacamahac. The usual name, balm of Gilead, is applied in recognition of the supposed healing virtue of the wax which covers the buds and young leaves. It has long been used in medicine, but its exact value is still a matter of discussion. The wild Indians of the North discovered a use for the balsam in mending their bark dishes, and plugging knot holes in the wooden trenchers. The wax is slow to dissolve in water, and it resisted for a long time such soups as were known to the redman’s culinary art. Bees know the value of the wax and use it to seal cracks and crevices in their hives and to hold the comb in place. It is popularly believed that the economy of the wax on the buds is to keep them from freezing. That view is erroneous, for it would take more than a coating of wax to keep the buds warm with the thermometer from fifty to seventy degrees below zero, as it is every winter in some parts of this tree’s range.
Balm of Gilead is a native of the North from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but its finest growth is about the headwaters of the Mackenzie river, on Peace and Laird rivers, and the lower valley of the Athabaska. Sixty years ago Sir John Franklin reported that most of the driftwood of the Arctic ocean was this species. Since that time the range has been more definitely determined, and it is now known that the tree grows so far north that it is for some weeks in darkness, and again in summer for some weeks in unbroken sunshine. It grows in Alaska nearly 200 miles north of the Arctic circle. Its natural range southward reaches New England, New York, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, and Oregon.
Trees of all sizes abound, from mere shrubs in the outskirts of its range to trunks 100 feet high and six feet in diameter in favored localities. In the United States the best timber seldom exceeds thirty inches in diameter and sixty or seventy feet in height. The bark on limbs and young trunks is brownish-gray, frequently so tinged with green that it is noticeable at a considerable distance; but usually large trees have reddish-gray bark with deep furrows and wide ridges. Year-old twigs are clear, shiny reddish-brown; end buds are about an inch long, the side buds somewhat shorter.
The wood is not distinguishable in appearance from that of the other poplars or cottonwoods, but it is lighter than most of them, weighing 22.65 pounds per cubic foot, has a breaking strength which places it among the weakest woods, but in stiffness making a much better showing. The pores are small, numerous, and are distributed equally through all parts of the wood.
Balm of Gilead bears seeds abundantly and scatters them widely. It must do its planting quickly in the short summers of the cold North. It sticks close to alluvial flats, banks of rivers, borders of lakes and swamps, and gravelly soils. It grows to a diameter of fifteen inches in about forty-five years.
Though balm of Gilead is not one of the most important timber trees of this country, its place is by no means obscure. No separate tally is kept of it among woods cut for pulp, but it goes with aspen and other similar species as “poplar.” A little better account is kept of the amount passing through wood-using factories. The annual quantity so reported in Illinois is 2,775,000 feet, and it is made into boxes and crates. The lumber is shipped from the North, since it does not grow as far south as Illinois. The situation is different in Michigan, for balm of Gilead grows there. The amount going yearly into factories in that state is reported at 4,912,000 feet. It is made into many commodities, but boxes and crates take most of it. The wood is reduced to veneer and converted into berry buckets, grape baskets, fruit and egg crates, and other small shipping containers. It is made into excelsior and woodwool which are used as packing material. Druggist’s barrels are manufactured from this wood. These are small, two-piece vessels, bored hollow, with a closely fitting lid, and varying in size from a couple of inches high, to nearly a foot. They contain powders, perfumes, pills, and other commodities in small bulk. The wood is worked into pails, tubs, and kegs. Furniture makers put balm of Gilead to use in several ways. It is cut thin for shelving; it is made into panels, and is employed as cores over which to lay veneers of more expensive materials. Woodenware factories generally keep it in stock in the northern states.
The supply is ample at present to meet all demands. Cutters of pulpwood probably take more than sawmills, and are satisfied with smaller timber. Trees are often planted for ornament, but few if any have yet been propagated for forestry purposes.
Hairy Balm of Gilead (Populus balsamifera candicans) is not a species but a variety, and it is so different from balm of Gilead that it is entitled to a place of its own. Ordinarily it passes under the common names applied to balm of Gilead. It is a cultivated tree in eastern Canada and northeastern United States, where it has escaped from cultivation and is running wild. Both Sargent and Sudworth say that nothing is definitely known of the tree’s native range; while it has been claimed by others that it once grew wild in Michigan but was destroyed by lumbermen. Probably most planted balm of Gileads are of this variety, as they are very ornamental. It is a large tree with branches less upright and crowns more open than in the wild species. The leaves are wide, heart-shaped, and are usually silvery white beneath with minute hairs on the margins, on the veins, and leaf stems. It is not improbable that this variety could be more profitably planted for forestry purposes than the species which grows wild; but there is no present indication that foresters favorably consider either of them.
Largetooth Aspen (Populus grandidentata) is named on account of the shape of the leaves. It is sometimes called aspen, popple, white poplar, and large poplar. The wood weighs 28.87 pounds per cubic foot, and is the heaviest of the poplar group except Fremont cottonwood of the arid southwestern regions. The wood is white, attractive, but not strong. It was formerly manufactured into chip hats and shoe heels in New England, and is now used for baskets, crates, boxes, buckets, refrigerators, excelsior, and pulp. Northern factories usually give it the general name “poplar,” and for that reason its importance in the lumber trade is underestimated. Trees may reach a height of seventy feet with a diameter of two; but a height of forty or fifty is more usual. The species’ range extends from Nova Scotia to Minnesota, southward to Delaware and Illinois, and along the Appalachian mountains to North Carolina and Tennessee.
Gumbo Limbo (Bursera simaruba) is a south Florida species and is known also as West Indian birch. It is in a family by itself with no near relative. It is not a birch. The wood is spongy and very light, weighing less than nineteen pounds per cubic foot. It decays with remarkable rapidity. Branches thrust in the ground take root and grow. An aromatic resin, exuding from wounds in the bark, is manufactured into varnish. The leaves are substituted for tea, and gout remedies are made from the resin. Large trees are fifty feet high and two feet or more in diameter. Another Florida tree, not in the same family as this, is also called gumbo limbo (Simarouba glauca), paradise tree, and bitter wood. Ailanthus (Ailanthus glandulosa) is in the same family as paradise tree, but is not native in this country, though extensively planted here.
Angelica Tree (Aralia spinosa). This is a small tree, which usually develops little or no heartwood. The springwood, or the inner and porous part of the ring, is broad and yellow, the summerwood, or exterior part of the ring, is narrow and dark. The wood’s figure, due to the marked contrast between the outer and inner portions of the rings, is strong. When finished it shows a rich yellow, but somewhat lighter than dwarf sumach which it resembles. It is made into small shop articles, like button boxes, photograph frames, pen racks, stools, and arms for rocking chairs. Its range extends from Pennsylvania to Texas. It is sometimes known as Hercules’ club.
Aspen (Populus tremuloides) is widely known but not everywhere by the same name. It is called quaking asp, mountain asp, aspen leaf, white poplar, popple, poplar, and trembling poplar. The peculiarity of the tree which is apt to attract attention, and which gives it most of the names it carries, is the leaf’s habit of being nearly always in motion. The day is remarkably still if aspen foliage is not stirring. This is due to the long, flat leaf stem, which is so limber that it offers little resistance to air currents. The difference in color between the upper and lower sides of the leaves affords sufficient contrast to attract notice, and for that reason a person will observe the motion of aspen leaves when he might fail to see a similar movement among the leaves of other species where the contrast of colors is not so marked. Aspen is credited with being the most widely distributed tree of North America. It grows from Tennessee to the Arctic ocean, from Mexico to northern Alaska, from Labrador to Bering strait. It is found at sea level, and at 10,000 feet elevation among the mountains of California. Its very small seeds grow in enormous numbers. Winds carry them miles, and scatter them by millions. They spring up quickly when they fall on mineral soil. This places it in the class with “fire trees”—those which take possession of burned tracts. Paper birch is in this class. Aspen has replaced pines over large burned areas of the Rocky Mountains. It grows quickly but is weak if it has to contend with other trees. If crowded it speedily gives up the fight and dies. The wood is not strong, but is useful for several purposes. Next to spruce and hemlock, it is the most important pulpwood in this country, and it is coming into considerable use as lumber. The whiteness of the wood—it looks much like holly—makes it a favorite for small boxes and vessels for shipping and containing foods. It is made into jelly buckets, lard pails, fish kits, spice kegs, sugar buckets and a long line of similar articles. It turns well, and is made into wooden dishes. Michigan alone uses two and a half million feet of it a year; and it is in demand along the whole northern tier of states from Maine to Washington, but because it is not separately listed in lumber output, it is difficult to say how much is used. Trees are usually small, though trunks three feet in diameter are not unknown. It grows rapidly, and may be expected to fill an important place in this country’s future timber supply. There will be no occasion to plant it by artificial means, for nature will attend to the planting.
Balm of Gilead branch
