Carpinus caroliniana, the American hornbeam, is a small hardwood tree in the genus Carpinus. American hornbeam is also known as blue-beech, ironwood, musclewood and muscle beech. It is native to eastern North America, from Minnesota and southern Ontario east to Maine, and south to eastern Texas and northern Florida. It also grows in Canada (southwest Quebec and southeast Ontario). It occurs naturally in shaded areas with moist soil, particularly near the banks of streams or rivers, and is often a natural constituent understory species of the riverine and maritime forests of eastern temperate North America. Description American hornbeam is a small tree reaching heights of , rarely , and often has a fluted and crooked trunk. The bark is smooth and greenish-grey, becoming shallowly fissured in all old trees. The leaves are alternate, long, with prominent veins giving a distinctive corrugated texture, and a serrated margin. The male and female catkins appear in spring at the same time as the leaves. The fruit is a small long nut, partially surrounded by a three- to seven-pointed leafy involucre long; it matures in autumn. The seeds often do not germinate till the spring of the second year after maturating. Bark: On old trees near the base, furrowed. Young trees and branches smooth, dark bluish gray, sometimes furrowed, light and dark gray. Branchlets at first pale green, changing to reddish brown, ultimately dull gray. Wood: Light brown, sapwood nearly white; heavy, hard, close-grained, very strong. Used for levers, handles of tools. Specific gravity, 0.7286; density . Winter buds: Ovate, acute, chestnut brown, long. Inner scales enlarge when spring growth begins. No terminal bud is formed. Leaves: Alternate, two to four inches long, ovate-oblong, rounded, wedge-shaped, or rarely subcordate and often unequal at base, sharply and doubly serrate, acute or acuminate. They come out of the bud pale bronze green and hairy; when full grown they are dull deep green above, paler beneath; feather-veined, midrib and veins very prominent on under side. In autumn bright red, deep scarlet and orange. Petioles short, slender, hairy. Stipules caducous. Flowers: April. Monœcious, without petals, the staminate spike naked in pendulous catkins (aments). The staminate ament buds are axillary and form in the autumn. During the winter they resemble leaf-buds, only twice as large. They begin to lengthen very early in the spring, and when full grown are about long. The staminate flower is composed of three to