SIMARUBACEAE

Ailanthus. Tree of Heaven

Ailanthus glandulosa Desf.

HABIT.—A handsome, rapid-growing, short-lived tree, attaining a height of 50-70 feet and a trunk diameter of 2-4 feet, with a spreading, rather loose and open crown and a coarse, blunt spray.

LEAVES.—Alternate, pinnately compound, 1-3 feet long. Leaflets 11-41 in number, 2-6 inches long and about one-third as broad; ovate-lanceolate; entire with the exception of two or more coarse, glandular teeth at the base; glabrous, dark green above, paler beneath, turning a clear yellow in autumn or falling without change; ill-scented. Petioles smooth, terete, swollen at the base.

FLOWERS.—June, when the leaves are full grown; polygamo-dioecious; small, yellow-green, borne in upright panicles 6-12 inches or more in length; calyx 5-lobed; petals 5, greenish, hairy; stamens 10. Staminate flowers ill-scented, pistillate almost free from odor.

FRUIT.—October; 1-celled, 1-seeded samaras, spirally twisted, reddish or yellow-green, borne in crowded clusters.

WINTER-BUDS.—Terminal bud absent; lateral buds about 1/8 inch long, subglobose, brownish, downy.

BARK.—Twigs yellowish to red-brown, velvety-downy; thin, grayish and shallowly fissured on old trunks.

WOOD.—Soft, weak, of coarse and open grain, pale yellow, satiny, with thick, lighter colored sapwood.

NOTES.—A native of China, but naturalized in the United States and planted frequently in southern Michigan as a foliage tree. Only the pistillate trees should be planted, as these are almost free from the objectionable odor of the staminate trees. The smoke and dust of our large cities have little effect on the foliage, and the trees are perfectly hardy in the southern part of the state.