| 31st | Hardwoods_( |
| Hornbeam | |
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| European Hornbeam foliage | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Division: | Magnoliophyta |
| Class: | Magnoliopsida |
| Order: | Fagales |
| Family: | Betulaceae |
| Genus: | Carpinus L. |
| Species | |
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Plants in the genus Carpinus (Cár-pi-nus) are commonly called Hornbeams. They are relatively small hardwood trees. Many botanists place the hornbeams in the birch family Betulaceae, though some group them with the hazels (Corylus) and hop-hornbeams (Ostrya) in a segregate family, Corylaceae. The 30-40 species occur across much of the north temperate regions, with the greatest number of species in east Asia, particularly China. Only two species occur in Europe, and only one in eastern North America.
The common English name of "hornbeam" derives from the hardness of the wood (likened to horn) and the Old English beam, a tree (cognate with German "baum"). American Hornbeam is also occasionally known as blue-beech, ironwood, or musclewood; the first from the resemblance of the bark to that of the American Beech Fagus grandifolia, the other two from the hardness of the wood and the muscular appearance of the trunk respectively. The botanic name for the genus, Carpinus, is the original Latin name for the European species.
The leaves are deciduous, alternate, and simple with a serrated margin, and typically vary from 3-10 cm in length. The flowers are wind-pollinated pendulous catkins, produced in spring. The male and female flowers are on separate catkins, but on the same tree (monoecious). The fruit is a small nut about 3-6 mm long, held in a leafy bract; the bract may be either trilobed or simple oval, and is slightly asymmetrical. The asymmetry of the seedwing makes it spin as it falls, improving wind dispersal. The shape of the wing is important in the identification of different hornbeam species. There are typically 10-30 seeds on each seed catkin.
Hornbeams are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Autumnal Moth, Common Emerald, Feathered Thorn, Svensson's Copper Underwing and Winter Moth (recorded on European Hornbeam) as well as the Coleophora case-bearers C. currucipennella and C. ostryae.
The European Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), is a small to medium sized tree, typically 10-20 m tall but occasionally reaching 30 m. It is native to most of Europe except for Ireland, northern Britain and most of Scandinavia. The leaves are 5-9 cm long, and the seeds have a 3-4 cm long trilobed bract.
The Oriental Hornbeam (Carpinus orientalis) occurs in southeast Europe and southwest Asia, usually on hot dry sites at lower altitudes than C. betulus, and is a smaller tree, rarely over 10 m tall and often shrubby. It has small leaves, 3-5 cm long. The seeds differ from C. betulus in having a simple bract (not trilobed), about 2 cm long.
The Japanese Hornbeam (Carpinus japonica) is similar to C. orientalis in having unlobed seed bracts, but differs from it in having larger leaves, 8-10 cm long.
The North American species, American Hornbeam
(Carpinus caroliniana) is similar to C. betulus
in leaf size and shape. The seed bract is also trilobed, but less
deeply than in C. betulus. The trunk and limbs have a
distinct 'muscled' shape, with long smooth rounded ridges running
lengthwise. The bark is smooth bluish-grey, similar but even finer
in texture to the American Beech Fagus grandifolia.
It is commonly referred to as iron-wood, blue-beech or muscle-wood.
Note that the appellation 'iron-wood' is also used for Ostrya
virginiana (Eastern Hophornbeam, American Hophornbeam) and
these two trees' ranges overlap in parts of Eastern North
America.
Hornbeams yield a very hard timber, giving rise to the name iron-wood. Dried heartwood billets are nearly white and are suitable for decorative use. For general carpentry, hornbeam is rarely used, partly due to the difficulty of working it. Its hardness has however lent it to use for carving boards, tool handles, handplane soles, coach wheels, piano actions and other situations where a very tough, hard wood is required, perhaps most interestingly as gear pegs in simple machines, including traditional windmills. It is sometimes coppiced to provide hardwood poles. It is also used in parquet flooring.
HORNBEAM (Carpinus betulus), a member of a small genus of trees of the natural order Corylaceae. The Latin name Carpinus has been thought to be derived from the Celtic car, wood, and pin or pen, head, the wood of hornbeams having been used for yokes of cattle (see Loudon, Ency. of Pl. p. 792, new ed. 1855, and Littre, Diet. ii. 556). The common hornbeam, or yoke-elm, Carpinus betulus (Ger. Hornbaum and Hornbuche, Fr. charme), is indigenous in the temperate parts of western Asia and of Asia Minor, and in Europe, where it ranges as high as 55° and 56° N. lat. It is common in woods and hedges in parts of Wales and of the south of England. The trunk is usually flattened, and twisted as though composed of several stems united; the bark is smooth and light grey; and the leaves are in two rows, 2 to 3 in. long, elliptic-ovate, doubly toothed, pointed, numerously ribbed, hairy below and opaque, and not glossy as in the beech, have short stalks and when young are plaited. The stipules of the leaves act as protecting scale-leaves in the winter-bud and fall when the bud opens in spring. The flowers appear with the leaves in April and May. The male catkins are about 12 in. long, and have pale-yellow anthers, bearing tufts of hairs at the apex; the female attain a length in the fruiting stage of 2 to 4 in., with bracts i to 12 in. long. The green and angular fruit or "nut" ripens in October; it is about 4 in. in length, is in shape like a small chestnut, and is enclosed in leafy, 3-lobed bracts. The hornbeam thrives well on stiff, clayey, moist soils, into which its roots penetrate deeply; on chalk or gravel it does not flourish. Raised from seed it may become a tree 40 to as much as 70 ft. in height, greatly resembling the beech, except I See the description of the instrument and of other attempts to obtain the same result by Gottfried Weber, "Wichtige Verbesserung des Horns" in Allg. musik. Ztg. (Leipzig, 1812), pp. 758, &c.; also 1815, pp. 637 and 638 (the regent or keyed bugle).
2 See Allg. musik. Ztg., 1815, May, p. 309, the first announcement of the invention in a paragraph by Captain G. B. Bierey.
3 lbid., 1817, p. 814, by F. Schneider, and Dec. p. 558; 1818, p. 53 1. An announcement of the invention and of a patent granted for the same for ten years, in which Blumel is for the first time associated with Stolzel as co-inventor. See also Caecilia (Mainz, 1835), Bd. xvii. pp. 73 seq., with illustrations, an excellent article by Gottfried Weber on the valve horn and valve trumpet.
4 For a very complete exposition of the operation of valves in the horn, and of the mathematical proportions to be observed in construction, see Victor Mahillon's "Le Cor," also the article by Gottfried Weber in Caecilia (1835), to which reference was made above. A list of horn-players of note during the 18th century is given by C. Gottlieb Murr in Journal f. Kunstgeschichte (Nuremberg, 1776), vol. ii. p. 27. See also a good description of the style of playing of the virtuoso J. Nisle in 1767 in Schubart, Aesthetik d. Tonkunst, p. 161, and Leben u. Gesinnungen (1791), Bd. ii. p. 92; or in L. Schiedermair, "Die Bliitezeit d. Ottingen-Wallensteinschen Hofkapelle," Intern. illus. Ges. Smbd. ix. (1), 1907, pp. 83-130.
in its rounder and closer head. It is, however, rarely grown as a timber-tree, its chief employment being for hedges. "In the single row," says Evelyn (Sylva, p. 29, 1664), "it makes the noblest and the stateliest hedges for long Walks in Gardens or Parks, of any Tree whatsoever whose leaves are deciduous." As it bears clipping well, it was formerly much used in geometric gardening. The branches should not be lopped in spring, on account of their tendency to bleed at that season. The wood of the hornbeam is white and close-grained, and polishes ill, is of considerable tenacity and little flexibility, and is extremely tough and hard to work - whence, according to Gerard, the name of the tree. It has been found to lose about 8% of its weight by drying. As a fuel it is excellent; and its charcoal is much esteemed for making gunpowder. The inner part of the bark of the hornbeam is stated by Linnaeus to afford a yellow dye. In France the leaves serve as fodder. The tree is a favourite with hares and rabbits, and the seedlings are apt to be destroyed by mice. Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxvi. 26), who describes its wood as red and easily split, classes the hornbeam with maples.
The American hornbeam, blue or water beech, is Carpinus americana (also known as C. caroliniana); the common hophornbeam, a native of the south of Europe, is a member of a closely allied genus, Ostrya vulgaris, the allied American species, 0. virginiana, is also known as ironwood from its very hard, tight, close-grained wood.
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