"The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes," he answered; "and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and
scaly bark. Now HERE" (he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered) "all is real, sweet, and pure."
So they crossed them with the
scaly bark melon that had the hide of a rhino, creating the Kolb's gem.
Our farm here in south central Illinois was somewhat smaller in comparison: 97 acres of mostly rugged yellow clay hills populated with large, old-growth white oak,
scaly bark and smooth bark hickory trees.
One of my favourite largish shrubs for November and December is Mahonia 'Charity,' its thick, upright growing stems can be relatively bare of leaves, which shows off their rough,
scaly bark snaking upwards.
Even the bark and roots have value: The root's bright orange bark makes yellow dye, and the trunk's ridged and
scaly bark furnishes tannin for making leather.
The majority of the upland, however, supports extensive woodland, primarily juniper (Juniperus ashei), live oak (Quercus virginiana), hackberry (Celtis reticulata), cedar elm (Ulmus crassifolia), and scaly bark oak (Quercus durandii).
Juniper was the dominant tree, both in number and in biomass, occupying 18.49 [cm.sup.2]/[m.sup.2], but was mixed with small (< 4 cm basal diameter) scaly bark oaks.
This area was dominated by a few mature junipers (17.67 [cm.sup.2]/[m.sup.2]) intermixed with many young cedar elms, ashes, and scaly bark oaks.
The flowers and fruit vaguely resemble a cherry's, although this tree is neither sycamore nor ash nor cherry; indeed, the
scaly bark and contorted limbs remind one more of some archaic reptile than of the pleasant shady comfort that we call a tree.
In the picture at right, the abnormal-looking,
scaly bark is a sign that something is attacking the tree.
Large trees characteristically have
scaly bark at their base.
The
scaly bark is very attractive, especially on older trees.