Hornbeams are deciduous trees, usually with smooth, gray bark. Imbricate buds have many scales. Leaves are alternate and doubly toothed. Flowers are monoecious and borne in catkins. Fruit is a nutlet subtended on a bract.
Carpinus caroliniana–American Hornbeam
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| American Hornbeam (Blue-Beech) |
American Hornbeam (Blue-Beech) – Carpinus caroliniana
The American hornbeam is known also as musclewood, ironwood, and blue-beech. Blue-beech is a small, slow-growing, bushy tree with a spreading top of slender, crooked, or drooping branches. Hornbeam is found along streams and in low ground throughout the state as a forest understory tree. Its height is usually from 20—30 feet, and its trunk diameter is from 4—8 inches, although it sometimes grows larger.
The leaves of the hornbeam are simple, alternate, oval-shaped, and acute-tipped Leaves are 2—3 inches (5—71/2 cm) in length. Side veins of the leaves are unbranched and run straight to the teeth on the margins. This characteristic separates American hornbeam from the hophornbeam that has similar foliage. Teeth at the ends of the veins are larger than the teeth between the veins. Leaf margins are doubly toothed. Foliage resembles that of the black or sweet birch, but is smaller.
Buds are usually of two distinct sizes and are somewhat angled. The smaller buds, at the terminal end, are vegetative buds. The larger, plumper buds further down the twig are mixed buds and contain both floral and leaf initials.
The trunk is fluted with irregular ridges extending up and down the tree. The bark is light gray to dark bluish-gray in color and sometimes marked with dark bands extending horizontally on the trunk. The tree is commonly multi-stemmed as a result of damage from the hornbeam borer that kills the tree to the soil line, where its stump sprouts and regenerates another tree.
The flowers are born in catkins. The male catkin is about 11/2 inches (4 cm) long while the female is about 3/4—1 inch (2—21/2 cm) long. Female flowers have small, leaflike, three-lobed, green scales. The fruit is a nutlet about l/3 inch (8 mm) long. When it falls, it is attached to the leaflike scale which acts as a wing and aids its distribution by the wind.
The wood is tough, close-grained, heavy, and strong. It is sometimes selected for use for levers, tool handles, wooden cogs, mallets, wedges, etc. The tree is of little commercial importance and often occupies space in the woods that should be utilized by more valuable kinds of trees if the trees are being grown for timber.