Other Common Names:
Rough-barked Ironwood, Hornbeam, Hop Hornbeam.
Ironwood, or as it is sometimes called, hop hornbeam, is not very common to this province. It has been seen in the western section of the province.
It is a small tree commonly 25 to 35 feet in height and 6 to 10 inches in diameter on average sites. The trunk is slender, nearly always erect, and usually extends to the top of the tree. In the open, the crown is broad and round-topped, while in dense stands it is narrow and cone-shaped.
It prefers rich, moist but well-drained, gravelly or loam slopes and ridges and is seldom, if ever, found in pure stands. It does not like shade and is commonly found with striped and mountain maples, beech, sugar maple, yellow birch, white ash and cedar.
Ironwood produces one of the hardest and toughest native woods and is used for vehicle stock, tool handles and spring-poles. Because of its small size it is not important as a lumber producer.
DESCRIPTION
LEAVES: Alternate, simple, oval in outline, sharp-pointed, fine double-toothed, thin, 2 1/2 to 5 inches long; dark yellow-green above, paler below with tufts of hairs in the angles of the veins.
FLOWERS: April-May; unisexual; in greenish catkins, the male formed the preceding autumn, the female appearing with the leaves; both sexes on the same twig.
FRUIT: September; a small greenish nut, enclosed in an oval bristly, papery sac; borne in dense elongated clusters on a slender stem.
TWIGS: Very slender, tough shiny, dark reddish-brown. No terminal bud; lateral buds sharp-pointed, slightly hairy chestnut-brown, about 1/4 of an inch long.
BARK: Light brown, soon roughened by narrow, elongated, shreddy scales which loosen at the ends.
WOOD: Very heavy, hard and tough, close-grained, diffuse, porous; light-brown with almost white sapwood.
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