| American Hornbeam Trees We Raise see www.seedlingsrus.com or call us at 215 651 8329 American hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana), also called blue-beech, ironwood, water-beech, or lechillo (Spanish), is a small slow-growing short-lived tree in the understory of eastern mixed hardwood forests. The short, often crooked trunk covered with a smooth slate gray bark is characteristically ridged, resembling the muscles of a flexed arm. The wood is close-grained, very hard, and heavy but little used because such a small tree is rarely converted into sawed products. Habitat Native Range American hornbeam is native to most of the eastern United States and extends into Canada in southwest Quebec and southeast Ontario. Its western limit is just beyond the Mississippi River from north-central Minnesota to the Missouri River, where it ranges southwestward into much of the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains and eastern Texas. It grows throughout much of the South but is absent from the Mississippi River bottom land south of Missouri, the lowermost Gulf Coastal Plain, and the southern two-thirds of Florida. Northward along the east coast, it is not found in the New Jersey pine barrens, much of Long Island, Cape Cod, northern and eastern Maine, and the White and Adirondack Mountains. It is found in central and southern Mexico, Guatemala, and western Honduras. |
