Beverly Nutt, age 9, of Monroeville, Pennsylvania, for her question:

Where does the ironwood tree grow?

You may find ironwood trees in the woods around Pittsburgh. Choose a woodsy place on the low, flat ground not far from a stream or a lake. It is a dainty tree, though it may grow 30 feet tall. The ironwood may remind you of a graceful beech tree, though its bumpy trunk is tightly wrapped in silky smooth bark of a deep blue gray. Some people call it the blue beech tree. Other people call it the hornbeam tree. The winter birds love it because its leafy twigs droop down with feathery clusters of tiny nuts. In the fall, the green leaves blush dark red. When the snow falls, the nutlets are ripe and ready to feed the hungry birds.

The wood of the ironwood tree is the color of light brown taffy. It is very heavy and you would not use it for your first lesson in wood carving. Ironwood is very hard and very sturdy. It is used to make hard working handles for axes and hammers. In our land, there are two types of ironwood tree, one just a little taller and darker than the other. They grow almost everywhere east of the Rocky Mountains. An ironwood grows with a mixture of other forest trees but, as a rule, it does not grow very close to other ironwood trees.