COFFEETREE
(Gymnocladus Dioicus)

This tree is scarce though its range covers several hundred thousand square miles, from New York to Minnesota, and from Tennessee to Oklahoma. It never occurs in thick stands, and usually the trees are widely scattered. Many districts of large size within the limits of its range appear to have none.

The names coffeetree and Kentucky coffeetree refer to the custom of the pioneers, who settled the region south of the Ohio river, and who used the grotesque fruit as a substitute for coffee at a time when the genuine article could not be procured. The seed is a very hard bean that can be procured in abundance, where trees abound.

The beans were softened by roasting or parching, and were then pounded into meal with hammers, and boiled for coffee. The beverage was black and bitter, and a little of it would go a long way with a modern coffee drinker. When the Kentuckians were able to procure coffee they let the wild substitute alone.

The name was sometimes varied by calling it coffeenut or coffeenut tree, and sometimes it was known as coffeebean and coffeebean tree. It is less easy to explain why it was called mahogany in New York, and virgilia in Tennessee. Some knew it as the nicker tree, but the reason for the name is not known. Stump tree was another of its names. This was meant to be descriptive of the tree’s appearance after it had shed its leaves. It has remarkable foliage, double compound leaves two or three feet long, with four or five dozen leaflets. When leaves fall in autumn it looks as if the tree is shedding its twigs; and when all are down, the stripped and barren appearance of the branches suggests the name stump tree.

The flowers are greenish-purple and are inconspicuous. In this respect they differ from many trees of the pea family which are noted for their attractive bloom. The fruit is among the largest of the tree pods of this country, ranging in length from six to ten inches and from one and a half to two in width. When fully grown they are heavy enough to make their presence felt if they drop on the heads of persons beneath. They are slow to fall, however, and it is not unusual for them to cling to the branches until late winter or early spring.

The coffeetree has been known to attain a diameter of five feet and a height of more than a hundred, but the usual size is about half of that. It prefers rich bottom lands, and the trunks generally separate into several stems a few feet above the ground. Only one species exists in this country, and as far as known, only one other species elsewhere, and that grows in southern China where it is said the natives make soap of the pods. It is not known that any such utilization has been attempted in this country.

The coffeetree’s range has been considerably extended by planting for ornament. In summer it is attractive, but from the first autumn frost until the leaves put out the following spring, it is uninteresting. The spring leaves are late, and the branches are bare more than half the year.

The wood is heavy, strong, and durable in contact with the soil. The heart is rich light brown, tinged with red, the sapwood thin and lighter colored. Annual rings are distinct. The springwood is porous and wide, the summerwood dense. The medullary rays are inconspicuous and of no value in giving figure to the wood. When the annual rings are cut diagonally across they give figure like that of ash. The wood of the coffeetree has never been in much demand. Furniture makers may use it sometimes, but specific instances of such use do not exist in manufacturers’ reports. There are many places in furniture and finish which it might fill in a satisfactory manner.

It is suitable for fence posts, and that is where it commonly gives service. It is occasionally employed as frame work in house and barn building, but is not sought for that purpose, and is used only when it happens to be at hand. Though the tree has the habit of branching, some of the trunks grow tall and shapely, and are good for two or three sawlogs or railcuts. An occasional tree serves as fuel. Medicine is sometimes made of a decoction of the fresh green pulp of unripe pods; and the leaves are reported to produce a fly poison if soaked in water.

Redbud (Cercis canadensis) is also known as Judas tree, red Judas tree, Canadian Judas tree, and salad tree. The last name refers to a custom in some parts of its range of making salad of the flowers. It is the flower rather than the bud that is red and gives the tree its name, the bloom being conspicuous in early spring. The tree ranges from New Jersey to Missouri, Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, but reaches its fullest development in southern Arkansas, Oklahoma, and eastern Texas where trunks fifty feet high and a foot in diameter are found. It is shrubby in many parts of its range. Leaves are not compound. The fruit is a pink or rose-colored pod two or three inches in length, and by some is considered nearly as ornamental though not as showy as the flowers. No one ever thinks of redbud as a timber tree or considers its wood, yet it might be used for a number of purposes. It is heavy and hard, but weak; and the heartwood is rich dark brown tinged with red. The tree is planted for ornament in this country and Europe.

Texas Redbud (Cercis reniformis) differs somewhat from the common redbud, but it takes a botanist to point out the differences. The largest trees are forty feet high and a foot in diameter; the range extends from eastern Texas into Mexico; the wood closely resembles that of the other species, and is not known to be used for any purpose.

California Redbud (Cercis occidentalis) is often classed as a shrub, but Sudworth gives it a place among the forest trees of the Pacific coast. The pea-shaped flowers are a clear magenta color. The pods turn purple when ripening but afterwards change to russet-brown. The wood is dark yellowish-brown, but because of the smallness of the trunks, it can never be important. The tree is found along the California mountains, six hundred miles north and south; is an abundant seeder, and is valuable as a protection to slopes and ravines, and as an ornament.

Horsebean (Parkinsonia aculeata) is generally called retama in the valley of the lower Rio Grande in Texas where the species attains its largest size. Trees are occasionally thirty feet high and a foot or more in diameter. Trunks usually separate in several stems near the ground. The range extends from southern Texas to California, and the species is naturalized in south Florida, the West Indies, and many tropical countries. Leaves vary in form, and are occasionally eighteen inches long. Fruit consists of pods, each containing from two to eight beans. The yellow flowers are small and fragrant; the bark on young twigs is green, but on older trunks is brown. The brown, however, is easily rubbed off, exposing the green beneath, as may be seen in school grounds in some of the southern towns in Texas where this tree has been planted for ornament, and abrasions, due to children climbing about the spreading stems, keep the bark green. The upper branches are armed with thorns which discourage the climbing propensities of children. The wood is heavy, hard, tinged with yellow, and is made into small novelties, but is not of much importance.

Small-leaf Horsebean (Parkinsonia microphylla) is well named, for the compound leaves, with four or six pairs of leaflets, are about an inch long, covered with hairs, and fall at the end of a few weeks. Consequently, the tree is bare most of the year, except for the pale yellow flowers which appear in spring before the leaves, and the clusters of striped pods, each containing from one to three beans. The pods are nearly always present, for they have the pea family habit of adhering to the branches a long time. Trees reach a height of fifteen or twenty feet, and a diameter of ten inches or less. The wood is very hard and dense, in color deep yellowish-brown, often mottled and streaked with dull red; the sapwood thick and yellow. The wood is suitable for small articles, but its scarcity renders it of little importance. It is found in the deserts of southern Arizona and the adjacent parts of California, and is usually a small shrub.

Jamaica Dogwood (Ichthyomethia piscipula) is the lone representative of the genus, and is found in this country only in southern Florida. It is not in the same family with the dogwoods, and its name is misleading. The Carib Indians formerly used the leaves to stupify fish and render them easier to catch; hence the botanical name. The leaves are compound, but bear little resemblance to the foliage of most members of the pea family to which this tree belongs. The flowers are the tree’s chief source of beauty, and are delicately clustered, hanging in bunches a foot long. The fruit is a pod three or four inches long, with four wings running the full length. The wings are useless for flying. Trees are forty or fifty feet high and two or three feet in diameter; are common in southern Florida and on the islands. The wood is of considerable importance in the region where it grows but figures little in general markets. It weighs 54.43 pounds per cubic foot, and is moderately strong and stiff. In color it is a clear yellow-brown, with thick, lighter colored sapwood. It is very durable in contact with the ground, and in Florida it is used for posts, and occasionally for railway ties. It has been commonly reported as a wood for boatbuilding in Florida, but its importance for that purpose has probably been overstated, since an investigation of the boatbuilding industry in Florida failed to find one foot of this wood in use, although some may be employed but not listed in reports.