Tree Notes

Welcome, Visitors!

2012-10-07T21:26:00.003-07:00

Thank you for reading "Tree Notes!"

Dear readers and subscribers,

Due to other demands on my time and energy, I'm not able to continue researching and writing "Tree Notes" at present. However, I do still read and appreciate your comments here.

You can visit archived articles by scrolling down on this page and clicking on any topic that interests you.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you'll enjoy your visit here.

Genevieve

Yellow pine, a Kentucky native

2011-02-02T23:50:00.000-08:00

Pinus echinata: Shortleaf pine, yellow pine

The Commonwealth of Kentucky has four native pine species --

Pinus echinata
Pinus strobus
Pinus rigida
Pinus virginiana

Today, we'll take a brief look at Pinus echinata, and we'll look at the other three in the future.

Yellow pine sapling. Photo by Jason Sturner 72.

In Kentucky, we often refer to Pinus echinata as yellow pine, but it has several common names. The National Forest Service's Sylvics Manual notes that "Depending upon locale, the species is also called shortleaf yellow, southern yellow, oldfield, shortstraw, or Arkansas soft pine."

The names "shortleaf" and "shortstraw" are a bit misleading. The needles of Pinus echinata can grow up to 5 inches long!

Pinus echinata is a native tree of 21 states, mostly in the southeastern United States. It has been logged extensively, so it is not as common in the Kentucky woods as it once was. Shortleaf pine is used for plywood and wood pulp, as well as for lumber.

Yellow pine on a rocky slope
Photo by cm195902

Pinus echinata can grow up to 100 feet in height or even more, in a favorable location. It doesn't do well in calcium-rich, higher pH soils.

In Kentucky, yellow pine's preference for an acidic soil explains why it grows mostly in our eastern highlands. There it finds a home in well-drained, sandstone-based (sandy) slopes and valleys with mildly to moderately acidic soil. In the Bluegrass region and western Kentucky, our soils are often limestone-based, thus less acidic and less hospitable to yellow pine.

You can identify Pinus echinata by its needles which occur in bundles of 2 (or sometimes 3). Its cones are egg-shaped, up to 2-1/2 inches in length. Each scale on a mature cone of shortleaf pine has a pointy little prickle.

In Trees & Shrubs of Kentucky, Mary E. Wharton and Roger W. Barbour write,

A mature yellow pine is altogether noble in aspect. Its tall straight trunk with a map-patterned bark stands in unquestioned dignity bearing a lofty crown of slender branches. It is handsome in parks and large lawns, and in such places it should be planted more frequently.

W.D. Brush - USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database

The Valuable Willow

2011-01-24T00:33:00.000-08:00

Virtues of an under-appreciated tree family

As "yard trees", willows doesn't get much respect from me. They tend to have:
   (1) brittle branches that break easily in high winds or icy conditions,
   (2) water-seeking roots that will clog sewer lines, and
   (3) short lives.

I'm generalizing about the 75+ species of North American willows here, but those attributes should make any sensible homeowner wonder about the wisdom of planting a willow near his house!

Black Willow, Salix nigra. Morton Arboretum
Wikimedia image by Bruce Marlin

Salix nigra catkins
Wikimedia image by SB Johnny.

Nonetheless, willows (Salix spp.) have their good side, especially when kept where God intended them to grow. Many of our North America willows occur naturally in wetlands and on stream margins. There, a dense mat of willow roots is a good thing. It can reduce erosion and help control floods.

Willows are often a pioneer species -- the first woody plant to take root and grow in a formerly barren area. They are useful in land reclamation projects, such as land that has been strip mined, old industrial sites, etc. (Willows can be invasive, however, so get advice from your local university extension office before mass-planting them.)

Wherever willows grow, they provide habitat and food to wildlife. They have helped to feed and shelter people too! Historically, young, tender willow buds, twigs, and leaves were a food of some of the indigenous people of Canada and Alaska. And willow, though a soft, weak wood, has served many building purposes when better wood was unavailable. Basket weavers have used the long, supple, young twigs of willow for centuries. Bent-wood furniture making, another time-honored craft, also uses willow branches.

Willow bark contains salicin, a mild analgesic. It is an ancient remedy, a forefather to aspirin as we know it today. Hippocrates wrote about willow bark tea several centuries before the birth of Christ. Many of the Indian tribes of our continent used bark, leaves, roots, and sap from native willows as medicinal remedies. The European settlers were also familiar with the benefits of willow teas and powders.

Nowadays, most of us buy manufactured pain pills, but willow-bark tea is still an effective, though slower-acting, pain reliever. Many recipes for making it can be found online. If you decide to try it, you'll have to collect some willow bark. Remember not to girdle (cut a strip all the way around) the willow's trunk, or you'll kill it. And remember all the usual cautions about aspirin consumption.

Willows also contain high levels of a plant growth hormone called auxin. You can buy powdered auxin to stimulate the growth of roots on hard-to-propagate cuttings. Or, you can make auxin-rich willow water by boiling small pieces of willow twigs. One method is to stand the cuttings in room-temperature willow water for 24 to 48 hours, and then plant them. Dampen the medium or soil with willow-water after planting, and follow up with more willow-water whenever dry.

With all that auxin flowing through their systems, willows are notable -- notorious! -- for fast growth. That makes them an excellent source of biomass for energy production. Scientists are also looking at some of the willow species for bio-engineering. Their fast growth and prodigious intake of water may make them good candidates for cleaning up certain industrial contaminants.

Willows are unique and useful plants (despite a few bad traits). They deserve our respect, affection, and appreciation!

Free Tree Information

2011-01-04T23:55:00.000-08:00

Tree Info to download

The Education Store on the Purdue University Extension Service website has about 30 pdf files about urban tree care, common urban tree problems, tree-planting instructions, etc. that may be downloaded free of charge. Purdue University is located in Indiana, so some of the advice is most applicable to Indiana and the Midwest. However, much of the information is useful, no matter where you live.

Live Oaks of Bonaventure Cemetery

2010-11-10T22:23:00.000-08:00

Historic trees in Savannah GA

Bonaventure Cemetery (Image by reynolds.james.e)

Should I have the opportunity to travel to Savannah, Georgia, I want to visit the Bonaventure Cemetery. It is known for its beautiful live oaks (Quercus virginiana) and for being the burial place of Johnny Mercer and Conrad Aiken. I've been curious about it ever since reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Bonaventure Cemetery overlooks the Wilmington River. The site was once part of a 600 acre farm named Bonaventure, established in 1762 by Colonel John Mullryne and his wife Claudia. Colonel Mullryne laid out an internal road system for the property and planted live oaks at close intervals along the roadsides. Some of these roadways today are the famous "oak alleys" of Bonaventure Cemetery.

An antique stereoscopic view of
an oak alley at Bonaventure Cemetery.
Image from Wikimedia Commons

A family cemetery was established in the 1790s by a later owner of the plantation, Josiah Tattnall. The Tattnall family sold the plantation in 1846 to Peter Wiltberger. The Wiltbergers opened a 70-acre public cemetery (Evergreen Cemetery) on the property and assumed care of the original Tattnall burying ground (Old Bonaventure Cemetery). Evergreen Cemetery was taken over by the city of Savannah in 1907. The entire site, now 160 acres, is known as Bonaventure Cemetery today.

Donald Grant Mitchell wrote about Bonaventure Cemetery in Rural Studies: With Hints for Country Places. This book was published in 1867, so the live oaks were probably about 100 years old at the time of his visit.

Near to Savannah, in Georgia, and upon one of the creeks making into the irregular shores thereabout, is a cemetery called, if I remember rightly, Buena Ventura. In old times, any visitor at the Pulaski used to find his way there, and was richly repaid for the visit.

There was no proper "keeping" to the grounds. You passed in under a lumbering old gateway of unhewn timber; the paths were not carefully tended; there was much of rampant and almost indecorous undergrowth; the tombs were mossy, and the graves, many of them, sunken; but great liveoaks over-reached your path, and from their gnarled limbs hung swaying pennants of that weird gray moss of the Southern swamp lands—festooned, tangled, streaming down—now fluttering in a light breeze, and again drooping, as if with the weight of woe, to the very earth.

There was something mysteriously solemn and grave-like in it. The gnarled oaks and the slowly swaying plumes of gray told the completest possible story of the place. Had there been no tombs there, you would have said that it was the place of places where tombs should lie and the dead sleep. I have alluded to the scene only to show what and how much may be done by foliage and tree limbs, with their investing mosses, to give character to such a spot. (Source)

In A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, John Muir recalled the days he spent camping in the Bonaventure Cemetery in 1867 while he was waiting in Savannah for money to arrive. Of the live oaks, he wrote:

The most conspicuous glory of Bonaventure is its noble avenue of live-oaks. They are the most magnificent planted trees I have ever seen, about fifty feet high and perhaps three or four feet in diameter, with broad spreading leafy heads. The main branches reach out horizontally until they come together over the driveway, embowering it throughout its entire length, while each branch is adorned like a garden with ferns, flowers, grasses, and dwarf palmettos.

But of all the plants of these curious tree-gardens the most striking and characteristic is the so-called Long Moss (Tillandsia usneoides). It drapes all the branches from top to bottom, hanging in long silvery-gray skeins, reaching a length of not less than eight or ten feet, and when slowly waving in the wind they produce a solemn funereal effect singularly impressive. (Source)

Live oaks at Bonaventure Cemetery, early 1900s.
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs
Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

Bonaventure Cemetery
Image by bp6316 is BACK

I doubt if the cemetery is as overgrown and natural a place today as it once was, but its live oaks are still there. In 2004, they were placed on the Georgia Landmark and Historic Tree Register.

The Savannah Department of Cemeteries reports that the live oaks have been in "slow decline" for the last century, after surviving a number of major hurricanes during the 1800s. I hope that some younger live oaks are growing so the unique atmosphere and beauty of Bonaventure Cemetery is preserved for future generations.

Further reading
Quercus virginiana
Live Oak, USDA Forest Service Sylvics Manual
Floridata: Quercus virginiana
Discover the Bonaventure Cemetery
Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah

Cottonwood grove

2010-05-22T18:31:00.000-07:00

Poplar trees passing from maturity to old age

Grove of cottonwoods at a ranch entrance
in the Nebraska Sandhills, about 1957

Note: As you read this, you must remember that in the Nebraska Sandhills, there are no natural forests. The Sandhills are one of the great prairies of North America.

The grove of cottonwood (Populus deltoides) trees pictured above was the first thing you saw at the Sandhill ranch where I grew up. They towered above the west side of our ranch road, from our mailbox to the first auto-gate.

When my brother and I walked home from school, I liked to crawl under the fence at the mailbox and walk through these trees. I had never walked through a real forest, but I imagined that a forest would be something like this grove -- a quiet place shaded by tall, majestic trees. This mighty stand of cottonwoods seemed much more like a forest than the shelter-belts around our house. In the shelter-belts, the trees were short and bushy, and they grew in rows.

On windy days, I looked up and saw the tops of the trees moving, but the wind was not as strong at ground level inside the grove as it was outside it. Even though the trees were widely spaced, they seemed to slow the wind. My father knew this fact, as well. On bitter winter days, he sometimes fed the cattle their hay under these trees.¹

I brought my children to visit my childhood home in 1999. It had been about 25 years since my parents moved their ranching operation to Missouri, and I left Nebraska. I was shocked to see that many of the trees in the cottonwood "forest" of my childhood were dead or dying. I suppose the grove was planted by homesteaders after they began settling in Duff Valley in the 1880s. A cottonwood rarely lives more than a century. I knew that, of course, but I still imagined that my cottonwoods would live forever.

The same grove of cottonwoods, roughly 40 years later

Related:
Cottonwood trees of my childhood

¹The following paragraph from an Australian farm forestry page describes the same phenomenon:

In the case of scattered trees, the strongest winds tend to flow evenly over the top of the canopies, leaving the wind speeds at ground level much lower over the whole area. Measurements taken amongst widely spaced trees spread across grazing land indicate that reductions in wind speed of 40% over the whole paddock are possible with just 17 large remnant eucalypt trees per hectare, or about 200 young pruned timber trees per hectare. The larger the trees or the greater the stocking rate, the slower the wind speed will be. Such areas may be valuable as stock havens for ‘off-shears’ sheep or developed as special lambing or calving areas. (Source: "Trees for Wind Shelter")

Trees mentioned in property surveys

2010-05-07T02:12:00.000-07:00

Surveyors need to know their trees!

This oak tree in rural Christian County, KY,
probably marks the corner of a piece of property.

In 2010, it's still common to read in Christian County newspapers (and all across the Commonwealth) legal descriptions of property that list natural features as corner markers. Quite often, the natural corner marker is a tree, and quite often, the tree is an oak.

The following paragraph, describing a Christian County property, is quoted from the June 20, 1988, Kentucky New Era. This property description is noteworthy because it mentions seventeen trees -- and nine different species of trees. (Emphasis added in the quote below.)

TRACT VIII
BEGINNING at a red elm on the East bank of Pond River; thence North 67-1/2 East 86 poles to a planted stone; thence South 53 East 68 poles to a white oak and hickory; thence North 77 East 42 poles to a sugar tree; thence North 1-1/2 East 7 poles to a small crooked poplar in a drain, C. L. Pepper's corner; thence South 77 East 60 poles to a hickory and elm, Pepper's corner; thence North 33 East 65 poles to a white oak, Pepper's corner, thence South 27-1/2 East 34 poles to a black oak and sugar tree pointers; thence South 35 East 17 poles to a black oak; thence South 14 East 18 poles to a sugar tree; thence South 25, East 14 poles to a black oak; corner to Park Spring School House; thence South 20 East 34 poles to a white oak, A. Johnson's and Pepper's corner; thence South 41 West 76 poles to a stake and pointers in a line of a 100 acre survey; thence with it due West 16 poles to a stake in A. Johnson's line; thence North 55, West 92 poles to an elm; thence North 63-1/2 West 24 poles to a beech; thence South 49-1/2 West 5-1/2 poles to a box elder on the East side of Pond River; thence down said river with the meanders thereof to the BEGINNING, containing 100 acres, more or less. (Source)

The box elder tree, mentioned in the property description above, stood a good chance of dying before the next time the property was surveyed. If a box elder lives sixty years, it's an old tree. Presumably, it was already a tree of a few years and some size when the surveyor used it as a corner marker.

And what does a surveyor do when the trees in a property deed have died, been cut down, or cannot be found at all? Here are some examples of remedies:

"Beginning at a hickory and sycamore tree called for but now a stone planted..."

"...to a stake, formerly a black oak, standing on the East side of the road..."

"...thence with a cross fence north 6-1/2 west 59-1/2 poles to a dead white oak;"

"...identified by ancient description as beginning at the sugar tree on the bank of Coal Creek, near a spring; thence South 80 East 39 poles to a hickory called for but not found, a white oak marked as a corner..."

" Beginning at a fallen sycamore on the east bank of Coal Creek..."

"...thence south 75-1/2 W. 140 poles to a stone, a dogwood called for in old deed...thence N.E. 19 poles to a stone, a black oak called for..."

"...thence 87 E 84 poles to a stake in the edge of an old field (some black gum bushes and white oak called for, not found)..."

"Beginning at four (4) fallen pin oaks that grew in a two foot crevice between two large rocks (trees are lying there)..."

"...thence with his line South 50 degrees West 40-1/4 poles to a rotted stump, corner of the Jones tract..."

Native Trees with Smooth Bark

2010-05-04T22:54:00.000-07:00

Smooth-barked trees for your landscape

Pawpaw (Asimina triloba). Photo by Kurt Stueber

A landscape with a variety of tree barks has visual interest, especially in winter. Trees have many variations in their bark -- color, texture, thickness, etc. When the trees are leafless, the bark becomes a very noticeable feature. This article focuses on trees with very smooth bark.

Unfortunately, trees with smooth bark are appealing to vandals. I've seen beech trees sadly defaced by obscenities, carved with a knife into the smooth bark on the tree trunks. If you're looking for a tree to plant beside the street or road, a smooth-barked tree may not be the best choice.

Many trees have smooth bark as young saplings, but only a few trees retain smooth bark for their entire lives. Here is a list of five native trees with smooth bark, even in maturity:

American beech -- Fagus grandifolia -- Bark image

Common witchhazel -- Hamamelis virginiana -- Bark image

American hornbeam -- Carpinus caroliniana -- Bark image

Pawpaw -- Asimina triloba -- Bark image

Yellowwood -- Cladrastis kentukea -- Bark image

Also worth knowing

Poison-sumac -- Toxicodendron vernix -- Bark image

Poison-sumac, a small tree (or shrub), is mentioned here only because it might be useful to know that it has smooth bark for identification purposes. Try not to touch poison sumac at all because twigs, leaves, bark, flowers, fruit, and even the roots contain urushiol. Urushiol is a natural oil that produces a itchy and potentially serious skin rash in most humans. This same oil is found in poison ivy and poison oak.

Black locust blossoms

2010-04-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

Flowers of Robinia pseudoacacia

Here in south central Kentucky, black locust (Robinia psudoacacia) is blooming. Several stands of young black locusts grow along the lane that leads uphill from the highway to our house. I enjoy the lovely fragrance of the blossoms each spring, and enjoy the memories of them until spring arrives again.

Bees are also drawn to the fragrance of the nectar-rich blossoms. An acre of honeylocust is said to produce 800 to 1200 pounds of honey. Moreover, the black locust blooms late enough in spring that the blossoms are rarely damaged by frost; thus, black locust is a reliable annual source for bees.

The benefits of planting black locust for honeybees have long been recognized. The following quotation from G. W. Demaree of Kentucky was included in a 1919 beekeeping manual:

"The time of year in which it blooms, nearly filling the interval between the late fruit-bloom and the white clover, makes it an exceedingly valuable auxiliary to the honey harvest in the Middle States, if not elsewhere. It is a most profuse honey-bearer, rivaling the famous linden in quality, and only inferior to the product of the latter in color.

Locust honey cannot be said to be dark in color. It is of rich pale-red color, when liquid; but when in the shape of combhoney, its appearance, if removed from the hive when first finished, is but little inferior to that of superior clover honey. It becomes exceedingly thick, if left with the bees till the cells are thoroughly sealed, and its keeping qualities are therefore most excellent.

The trees are planted by the side of fences, in waste places, and on poor, worn out lands. They may be propagated from the seeds, or by transplanting the young trees from one to three years old. If the ground is plowed in the spring, and the locust seeds planted on the hills with corn, or with other hill-crops, and cultivated the first year, the young trees will grow with great rapidity, even on very poor lands."

Source: First Lessons in Beekeeping (p. 123) by Camille Pierre Dadant. Published in 1919 by the American Bee Journal of Hamilton, Illinois.

Sycamore Fruit

2010-04-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

Buttonballs, ready to drop

On a recent Saturday morning, my son and I spent two hours parked in a long line of stalled traffic on Interstate 65, just north of Elizabethtown, KY. An accident had occurred, and we had to wait until the road was cleared.

It was an absolutely gorgeous spring day, and our stopping place happened to be along a picturesque stretch of roadway. On our left, many dogwood and redbud trees were blooming on an east-facing hillside. On our right, a tangle of small trees and bushes were growing on the side of a ravine. Towering above them all was a young sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), seen in both the photo at left and the photo below.

Look how many of last year's fruits are still clinging to the top of that scyamore. This is typical of the tree -- in tree-speak, it's said that the sycamore fruits "persist" over winter.

The prickly seedballs break apart slowly, and the seeds gradually fall from the tree in late winter and spring. When there is wind or even a bit of breeze, the seeds drift along, using their "hair" as a parachute to keep them aloft.

The seed release is also perfectly timed for the seeds to be dispersed by spring floods. As the waters recede, seeds left in the mud are in the ideal spot to sprout and grow.

If you want to plant a sycamore tree, look for a seedling in the spring. You can recognize them by their large leaves. They are easy to dig up and transplant when they are small.

A sycamore seed that takes root in a friendly site can grow up to 10 feet in its first year. That's simply amazing -- from a seed to a 10-foot tree in 12 months.

Sycamore likes any damp location. It is most often seen in low-lying areas near streams, ponds, and lakes, but it can also establish itself in upland situations where the soil stays damp most of the time. The sycamore growing on the side of the ravine is a good example of the upland situations that sycamores can handle. In that site, it probably gets a good bit of runoff water from the road everytime it rains.

Leaves and fruit of Platanus occidentalis, American sycamore

Photo by Joseph O'Brien, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org

A fine log house in Todd County, KY

2010-04-12T20:54:00.000-07:00

Walnut shingles and tongue-in-groove floors

Many early log houses in Kentucky were built quickly and roughly. They were small structures with dirt floors and leaky roofs. They sheltered a pioneer family from wild animals, hostile Indians, and the worst of the weather. Perhaps when the fields were cleared, the barns and the fences were built, and a few harvests had been made, a larger, better house might be built.

This log house, built in Todd County sometime before 1809, was exceptionally well-made:

There were a few cabins which were quite pretentious and one of these had the first shingle roof in the county. It belonged to Adams, who sold out to Kennedy in 1809, and is thus described by the latter: "Adams was a thrifty, industrious man, and said to my father, 'I gad, I thought I would build the best and finest house in all the country.' It was constructed of large, hewed white oak logs, twenty-four feet long by eighteen feet wide, covered with black walnut shingles rounded at the butt end, and every one put on with walnut pegs, bored through shingles and lath with a brace and bit. It was a good roof, and lasted about thirty years.

"Then the lower and upper floors were laid with poplar plank, sawed by hand with a whip-saw, nicely dressed, tongued and grooved, and put down with pegs. Three windows two feet square, with nice shutters, but not a pane of glass, nor a nail in all the house, save in the three doors. For these a few nails were made by a blacksmith, his brother, Andy Adams. The chimneys were of stone, the first in the country, and contained at least 150 loads of rock. The fire-places were six feet wide, with wooden mantel-pieces." -- History of Todd County, Ky., published by F. A. Battey Publishing Co. Chicago, 1884.

Source: Kentucky: A History of the State by William Henry Perrin, J. H. Battle, and G. C. Kniffin (p. 209). Published in 1888 by F. A. Battey and Company, Louisville and Chicago.

Todd County, KY, is just east of Christian County where I live. The Todd/Christian county line is only a few miles from my home. I am familiar with the terrain of Todd County, and I suspect that this house may have been built in "North Todd", as we say here. White oak, black walnut, and tulip poplar were chosen because they were some of the most decay-resistant woods available.

A log house built in 1793, near Harrodsburg, Kentucky. Kitchen (at rear) with dogtrot added later. Photographed in 1940. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS KY,84-HARBU.V,2-

Woodlands were important to early settlers

2010-04-12T17:36:00.000-07:00

Forests valued more than prairies

Early settlers called the area that is now southern Todd County "the barrens" because it was flat and grassy. Few trees grew there, except along streams. It was part of a large prairie ("barrens") that stretched across present-day Barren, Warren, Simpson, and Logan counties, and the southern parts of Todd, Christian, and Trigg counties (see map). These barrens were one of several areas of tallgrass prairie in Kentucky before the land was put under cultivation.

The northern part of Todd county was hilly and forested, with a little creek at the bottom of every ridge. Such land, though rough and rocky, was considered highly valuable by early settlers. The reasons are summarized in this passage, written a century ago:

These lands [the soils] were not rich, but there was an abundance of fine timber out of which to build houses and barns and construct Virginia rail fences; beautiful streams well stocked with the finest of game fish; an abundance of mast to fatten swine; the river and creek bottoms covered with a growth of succulent young cane upon which cattle could live all winter; and wild game of many varieties in great abundance.

No wonder the settlers from the wooded hills and valleys of Virginia preferred this section to the "Barren" lands, as the prairie lands before mentioned were called. These same "Barren" lands were then selling for twelve and one-half cents per acre, while the wooded lands were selling for eight times as much.

Source: A History of Kentucky and Kentuckians: The Leaders and Representative Men in Commerce, Industry and Modern Activities by E. Polk Johnson (Volume 3, p. 1444). Published in 1912 by the Lewis Publishing Company of Chicago and New York.)

Trees used by Native Americans

2010-03-28T21:47:00.000-07:00

A tree index for a classic of ethnobotany

Recently, I discovered a fascinating little book: Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region. Melvin Randolph Gilmore researched and compiled this report for the Smithsonian Institute in 1911-1912. It was published by the Washington Government Printing Office in 1919.

This great reference can be downloaded free of charge from Google Books or from the homepage of the Southwest School of Botannical Medicine (SWSBM). The download is under 2M in size, and the book is about 120 pages long. It is also available for purchase at various online bookstores.

The book describes how trees and other plants were used by Plains Indians for food, medicine, tools, weapons, shelter, rituals, apparel, personal care, etc. The body of information is far too complex to summarize here, but I'm sure I will be referring to it in the future when I write about individual tree species.

I grew up in the Sandhills of northern Nebraska. We didn't live in the Missouri River valley, but all our rivers flowed to the Missouri. I found this book particularly interesting because I know many of the prairie plants that are mentioned in the book.

Chokecherry leaf, blossom, & fruit

I downloaded and printed the report, punched the pages, and put them in a nice document binder. The version I downloaded from the SWSBM is not indexed, so I created my own little index of the trees that are mentioned, and included it at the end of the report.

My index appears at the end of this post. If you add Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region to your own nature library, perhaps the index will be useful to you, too. If the list seems short, remember that the prairies didn't have many trees!

Please note that some of these trees are not native to the Missouri River regions. However, the Indians used various parts of these trees when they could obtain them through travel or trade.

The first name for each entry in my index is a common name that I have assigned. It is not always the same as the common name cited by Gilmore. The second name (italicized) is the Latin name as it appears in the book. This may or may not be the same Latin name the plant goes by today.The third notation is the page on which that tree is mentioned.

Image credit: USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / USDA NRCS. Wetland flora: Field office illustrated guide to plant species. USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
-----

Index to the trees mentioned in Melvin Randolph Gilmore's Uses of Plants by the Indians of the Missouri River Region

Ash, green -- Fraxinus pennsylvanica -- 78
Ash, prickly -- Zanthoxylum americanum -- 64
Basswood, American -- Tilia americana -- 70
Birch, paper -- Betula papyrifera -- 33
Black walnut -- Juglans nigra -- 32
Boxelder -- Acer negundo -- 68
Chinaberry -- Melia azederach -- 64
Chokecherry --Padus nana (Prunus virginiana var. virginiana) -- 51
Chokecherry, western -- Prunus melanocarpa (Prunus virginiana var. melanocarpa) -- 52
Cottonwood -- Populus sargentii -- 29
Crab apple -- Malus ioensis -- 48
Dogwood, redossier -- Cornus stolonifera -- 77
Dogwood, roughleaf -- Cornus asperifolia (Cornus drummondii)-- 77
Elderberry, American black -- Sambucus canadensis -- 87
Elm, American -- Ulmus americana -- 34
Elm, rock -- Ulmus thomasii -- 34
Elm, slippery -- Ulmus fulva (Ulmus rubra) -- 34
Hackberry -- Celtis occidentalis -- 35
Hawthorne, fireberry -- Crataegus chrysocarpa -- 49
Hazelnut -- Corylus americana -- 32
Hickory, shagbark -- Hicoria ovata (Carya ovata) -- 32
Highbush cranberry -- Viburnum opulus -- 87
Kentucky coffeetree -- Gymnocladus dioica -- 52
Maple, silver -- Acer saccharinum -- 67
Maple, sugar -- Acer saccharum --67
Nannyberry (Black haw) -- Viburnum lentago -- 87
Oak, bur -- Quercus macrocarpa -- 33
Oak, red -- Quercus rubra -- 33
Osage orange -- Toxylon pomiferum (Maclura pomifera) -- 35
Pine, lodgepole -- Pinus murrayana -- 18
Redcedar -- Juniperus virginiana -- 18
Sumac, smooth -- Rhus glabra --66
Wild plum -- Prunus americana -- 49
Willow -- Salix sp. -- 31

Silver maples are blooming

2010-03-18T22:00:00.000-07:00

Blossoms of Acer saccharinum

It's early spring in south central Kentucky, and the silver maples are blooming (a state that is called "inflorescence". Silver maple (Acer saccharinum) flowers are small, but they're noticeable because they don't have much visual competition this time of the year.

The blossoms in these photos would fall on the "spectacular" end of the silver maple blossom spectrum. This tree has large, brilliantly red flowers. In full bloom, it's a joy to the eyes in a landscape that is still wearing winter's drab colors.

The silver maple flowers in Steven J. Baskauf's photo on the Vanderbilt University website have a more subdued, more typical, reddish tone. Normal colors of silver maple flowers include shades of greenish-yellow.

I think the flowers in my photos are females. Flikr user Gavatron has a good photo of the male silver maple flower. Both male and female flowers may be borne on the same tree -- but not always. The U.S. Forest Service Sylvics Manual explains:

Four types of trees, with respect to sex expression, have been observed: all male flowers; all female flowers but with rudimentary pistils; mostly male with a few females; and mostly male with a few females and a scattering of hermaphroditic flowers. (Source)

Of course, the male flowers produce pollen, and that means that some people are having allergy problems, even though it's just mid-March.

The flowers are a food source for various songbirds, squirrels, and other wildlife. I was reminded of this last year after our big ice storm, when I watched a tiny chickadee land on a broken silver maple branch in our yard, peck the ice off a flower bud, and eat it.

Silver maples have their faults, but we won't go into all that today. Today, we'll just enjoy the blossoms.

Buckeye remedies for piles

2010-03-07T23:10:00.000-08:00

Old folk remedies for hemorrhoids

The advertisement at right is from a turn-of-the-century newspaper. Dr. Tabler's Buckeye Pile Cure was a commercial version of an apparently well-known home remedy. Using Google's book search, I found several descriptions of homemade buckeye salves in books of old folk medicine.

The Old Herb Doctor, His Secrets and Treatments contains two typical folk recipes for buckeye ointments. The ointments were used for the treatment of piles (more often called hemorrhoids today). One lady wrote that an effective ointment could be made by soaking thin slices of the buckeye kernel for 24 hours in warm lard. Someone else suggested frying thinly-sliced buckeye kernels in any sort of fresh grease and saving the grease to use as a remedy for piles. This was how his grandmother had prepared a highly successful ointment.

The following recipe for a buckeye medicine to be taken internally comes from an 1874 medical book that was still being reprinted in 1913. This remedy was said by the author to be very successful in the treatment of hemorrhoids.

Take of the recent nuts, fully ripened, four ounces; bruise them thoroughly, and cover with alcohol 76 one pint; let it stand for two weeks ; strain and filter. Of this tincture add from one to two drachms to four ounces of water — the dose being one teaspoonful.

Source: Specific Diagnosis: A Study of Disease with Special Reference to the Administration of Remedies by John M. Scudder, M.D. p. 59

Buckeye was considered so effective against piles that merely carrying a buckeye in your pocket would ward them off. Here is a typical endorsement of the practice:

Cure for the Piles.—Carrying the common buckeye in the pantaloons' pocket, will cure the piles or any other inflammation about the anus. I can not give a reason for it, but it is nevertheless certain—try it.

Source: 1843 American Agriculturist

I'm just reporting these remedies, not recommending them. If you want to try one of them, please just put a buckeye in your pocket. I'm quite familiar with people carrying buckeyes to prevent rheumatism. I guess there's no way to know all the maladies a buckeye in the pocket might prevent. That probably explains why some people carry them simply for good luck.

- - - - - - - - - -

The common buckeye of Kentucky and much of the eastern U.S. is Aesculus glabra, the Ohio buckeye.

Identifying cottonwood in winter

2010-02-23T22:34:00.000-08:00

Populus deltoides (aka Eastern cottonwood, Eastern poplar)

Several characteristics of the mature Eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) make it easy to identify, even at a distance.

Height -- The Eastern cottonwood is typically very tall, up to 100 feet in height in favorable conditions. The crown can be as wide as the tree's height, if it is not crowded by other trees.
High crown -- The lowest branches may not be within reach; rather, they may be high overhead. Cottonwoods aren't trees that invite climbing.
Massive branches -- The limbs usually head off from the trunk in a somewhat upright direction, and they are large and long. If the limbs appear delicate in comparison to the trunk, it's probably not a cottonwood. As the branches grow longer, they tend to arch a little, giving the tree a vase-like shape.
Rugged and often ragged shape -- The tree has weak wood, and its branches often break in heavy storms. Dead wood is a light gray or nearly white, after the bark falls off.
Moist location -- The Eastern cottonwood loves any site with damp ground. This includes stream and pond banks, road ditches, moist ravines, floodplains, swamp edges, and any other area with plenty of moisture. It even tolerates standing in water for short periods of time. (Cottonwood also tolerates dryer sites, but often it was introduced to such places, rather than growing there naturally.)

As the observer draws closer to the tree, another distinctive feature becomes evident:

The rough bark of the trunk and large branches has deep vertical furrows, and its color is ash gray. In contrast, the bark of the twigs is light tan or yellowish brown -- though the twigs may be too high in the air to see them clearly!

And last but not least, look for brown, triangular leaves with long stems and zigzag edges, lying on the ground below the tree. (The word deltoides in the cottonwood's Latin name means triangular, like a river delta.)

I am rather fond of cottonwood trees because so many grew on the grounds of the one-room country school I attended in northern Nebraska. I believe they were Eastern cottonwoods rather than the closely-related plains cottonwood.

Our schoolhouse sat on a low meadow. Water often stood on one end of the playground in winter (we ice-skated at recess), and in spring when the snow and ice melted, the road ditches became little streams. It was a perfect place for cottonwoods.

The cottonwoods grew on three of the four sides of the school grounds. They were great for hide-and-seek. A few of the trunks were so large that several children could hide behind them -- what fun!

My schoolmates and I were upset when our fathers got together one day and cut down one of our favorite trees for hiding. It was old, and they were afraid it was going to drop limbs on the schoolhouse.

I took three of the photographs in this post in Christian County, KY. The little clump of cottonwoods in the top photo grows in a low spot near the Hopkinsville High School. Water collects there whenever there's a heavy rain. I took the two creek-bank photos in eastern Christian County. The stream is the South Fork of Little River, near its origin.

Credit for the great photo looking straight up the cottonwood trunk: USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / Herman, D.E., et al. 1996. North Dakota tree handbook. USDA NRCS ND State Soil Conservation Committee; NDSU Extension and Western Area Power Administration, Bismarck.

Kentucky forest report ready for review

2010-02-16T16:06:00.000-08:00

Kentucky's Statewide Assessment of Forest Resources

The Kentucky Division of Forestry report, mandated by the 2008 Federal Farm Bill (the Food, Conservation And Energy Act Of 2008), is ready for public review and comment. It will be submitted in June 2010. It focuses on five issues of greatest concern to Kentucky citizens that were identified in an earlier survey:

1. Forest health
2. Water quality and quantity
3. Forest loss and fragmentation
4. Forest management
5. Funding

Big white oak trees of the past

2010-02-14T20:49:00.000-08:00

Giant oaks of the primeval forest

I came across an item in an old newspaper about a very large white oak that was harvested in Breckenridge County, Kentucky. It piqued my curiosity, so I located the stories of a few more big oaks that were cut from the virgin forests of the greater Ohio River valley. I've quoted four of the news items below.

As large as these white oaks were, they did not rival the size of a white oak that was cut in Holden, West Virginia, in 1938. That giant was reported to be the largest white oak in the world. It was 9 feet in diameter and nearly 100 feet tall, and it was estimated to contain 15,000 board feet of lumber.

Big Oak Log

It required ten horses to haul a big white oak log which was brought to town last week, by T. W. Sanders, to be shipped to Evansville[, Indiana, down the Ohio River]. The log measured out 1,519 feet, was 49 inches in diameter at the small end and 54 inches at the large end. It belonged to the timber firm of Cooper & Williams and was cut on a tract of land near Tar Springs. One of the finest lot of oak timber ever cut in the county was hauled to town this year from this tract of land, many logs out of several hundred averaging a thousand feet by measure.

Source: The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) November 02, 1904

Paris, [Kentucky,] May 17 [1900].--A big oak that has for many years been an object of Riley Howse in Nicholas county has been sold to Ossian Edwards, of Paris, for $110. It measured forty-five feet in circumference and seven feet five inches in diameter. Large crowds witnessed the fall of the monster tree.

Source: Crittenden press. (Marion, Ky.) May 24, 1900

A Big White Oak
From the Chicago Tribune

A short time ago a New-York firm sent an agent to Scottsburg, Ind., to purchase a large white oak tree, which measured 27 feet in circumference. They bought the tree for $75, and set to work to get out as large a board as possible. The tree was felled and ripped up by means of a crosscut saw. They got out one board that was 10 inches thick, 5 feet 2-1/2 inches wide at the butt and 4 feet 8-1/2 inches wide at the top and 32 feet long. This board was loaded upon a broad-tread wagon to which two yoke of oxen and eight horses were hitched, and it took one whole day to remove it one and a half miles. This was probably the largest white oak tree in the United States.

Source: The New York Times, April 7, 1889

The largest white oak tree ever cut in the United States came out of Trumbull county, Ohio, a few years ago. It was delivered to a timber mill, and measured 62 feet in length and seven feet through, and contained 7,365 feet of lumber, board measure. It was located by Mr. Helman's buyers on C. K. Shipman's farm in Gustavus, Ohio, and $100 bought it. The Helman Company dressed the stick down to 30 x 30 inches, 62 feet long and shipped it to New York, where it is now used as a dredge anchor.

Source: Reading Eagle, Feb. 2, 1908

Identifying baldcypress in winter

2010-01-24T22:30:00.000-08:00

Another easy-to-recognize tree

I receive so many questions about tree identification that I've decided to write a few articles about some of the most common and easiest-to-recognize species.

The photo above shows a baldcypress in January. After you have gained a little practice in looking at trees and identifying them, you would not mistake this tree silhouette for anything but baldcypress (Taxodium distichum). Distinguishing features in winter include:

The very strong, very straight trunk
A lack of major side branches
Narrow, conical or columnar shape; much taller than it is wide
A few reddish, needle-like leaves still clinging to the branches.

This baldcypress is growing in a location that is higher and dryer than we might expect to see. Although baldcypress does well at water's edge, it will also grow in dryer circumstances when it receives plenty of light and enough moisture. This tree was purchased and planted here, I'm sure, rather than growing from a seed.

When this tree becomes mature, its top will become flatter and it will probably develop a few larger side branches. However, it will still be a fairly narrow tree. Baldcypress may exceed 100 feet in height in ideal conditions, and its spread will typically be about 1/3 of its height.

The photo at left gives a closer look at the trunk of a baldcypress. Here you will find a few more clues to identification:

Bark often has reddish-brown tones. (Baldcypress is a member of the redwood family).
Bark peels (exfoliates) vertically in narrow shreds
Reddish, dried leaves lying under the tree. (When in doubt always look for a leaf!)
Also look for baldcypress fruit on the ground or still on the branches -- hard wooden cones about the size of a ping-pong ball or smaller and covered with largish scales.

American beech in winter

2010-01-16T00:21:00.000-08:00

An easy tree to identify

Q. Which tree trunk in this photograph is an American beech?
A. The American beech is the second large trunk from the right.

American beech (Fagus grandifolia ) can be easily identified, even at a distance and even in winter, by its very smooth, silvery-gray bark. A strong second hint is the bleached-out, dead leaves still clinging on the tree in January.

Beeches grow throughout most of the eastern United States. Where you see one beech tree, you will often see several. The American beech is the only member of the beech family known to reproduce through root suckers. Root suckering of beeches is more common in the northern part of its range, where thickets of beech or many saplings clustered around a larger trunk may be seen.

Beechnuts are a valuable wildlife food. In American Wildlife and Plants, authors Martin, Zim, and Nelson list 17 species of waterfowl, game birds, and song birds that eat beechnuts. Animals that have been observed eating the nuts include black bears, deer, beavers, red and gray foxes, porcupines, squirrels, chipmunks, mice, and of course, squirrels. Deer also browse the leaves and twigs.

Along the rural backroad of Todd County, Kentucky, where I photographed this beech, half a dozen beech trees grow within a hundred yard radius of this tree. This group of beeches grows on a northwest-facing, steep, fairly moist hillside above a small, narrow valley ("holler") where a creek flows. I think the location could be described as a "messic ravine."

In maturity, the American beech is a tall, broad tree -- up to 100 feet in height and 75 feet in width. Beeches are slow-growing trees that usually live 200-300 years, and they are strong-limbed trees that resist weather damage. The beech in the photo is probably several decades older than I am!

Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs

2010-01-03T19:36:00.000-08:00

Excellent, but not superior

Note: I don't do affiliate advertising for books. The following is simply my opinion.

I have a new tree book in my library -- Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs: An Illustrated Encyclopedia by Michael A. Dirr. It falls a little short of my high expectations, initially, but I still expect it to be a very useful reference. Perhaps in time, I will cherish it as dearly as do most of its reviewers.

The book has hundreds of beautiful color photos of over 500 hardy species of native and exotic trees and shrubs. In the foreword, the author notes that the plants covered in the book will grow in zones 3 to 6, and most will grow in zones 7 or 8. For most species, a photo that depicts a typical, mature plant is provided, along with photos of any particularly ornamental characteristics of the plant.

Many of the plant descriptions include the names of attractive cultivars that are available through nurseries. Unique growing conditions needed by the species or cultivars are mentioned, as well as some of the negative characteristics such as unattractive winter foliage, susceptibility to disease, etc.

My main criticism of the book is that the type of information provided for one species may not be provided for the next. The author wrote about the characteristics of each plant that he considered most important. Sometimes comparisons of specific characteristics between two or more species are possible from his writing, but often not.

For complete sets of data for native species and for comparisons of species, I'll still be turning to Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines for Urban and Rural America: A Planting Design Manual for Environmental Designers by Gary Hightshoe. For me, Dirr's beautiful photos and engaging descriptions will be a supplement to, not a substitute for, the vast quantity of tabulated data presented by Hightshoe.

I should add that both of these books focus mainly on plants of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. If you live in the western U.S., many of your native species will not be found in either of these volumes.

Big Pecan Tree at Natchez Trace State Park

2009-12-03T13:46:00.000-08:00

One of the world's largest pecan trees

Big Pecan Tree in 2004, Natchez Trace State Park in western Tennessee

The Big Pecan Tree of Carroll County, Tennessee (above photo) was one of the world's largest pecan trees. In 1958, it was measured as 104 feet in height, 125 feet in crown spread, and 17 feet 8 inches in circumference of the trunk. Though it was a mature tree, it was still growing! In 1973 (image of the tree in about 1973), it was measured as 106 feet in height, 136 feet in spread, and 18 feet 2 inches in circumference. Its shade was said to cover an acre of ground.

The American Forestry Association recorded the tree's 1973 measurements in its Register of Big Trees and named it "The World's Largest Pecan Tree". It held the title for a short time, but within a year, larger pecan trees were found in Louisiana and Virginia.

Ric Brooks' photo of the tree (above) was taken in 2004, near the end of the Big Pecan Tree's life. Deterioration is clearly evident; however, the size of the tree is suggested by the massive trunk and branch captured in the photo. The trunk was filled with concrete, some of which is visible. Because of the concrete, the exact age of the tree could not be ascertained.

Planted along the Natchez Trace

The Big Pecan Tree grew along the Natchez Trace in west-central Tennessee. I picked up an information sheet titled "Natchez Trace State Park History" at the state park's visitor center several years ago. It described the Natchez Trace as...

...originally... an ill-defined series of trails and paths beaten out by the Indians and perhaps the buffalo. Several of these trails, though individually unimportant, when joined together lead to a Northeasterly direction from the present day Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee.

Later the settlers would travel down the Trace to sell their goods, often on foot, further tramping out and identifying a more definite Trace.

(Source: Undated, unattributed hand-out from the Natchez Trace State Park Visitors Center)

A high, dry ridge in Carroll County, Tennessee, was an unlikely spot for The Big Pecan Tree to grow. Pecans were not native to that area, which suggests that an old legend about the tree is probably based on fact. Oral history claims that a pecan nut was brought to the site by travelers on the Natchez Trace, which passed a mere 30 feet from the site where the tree grew.

A plaque placed at the tree in the 1930s by the John McCall Chapter of the D.A.R. (Daughters of the American Revolution) recorded the legend: "Accepted tradition says that this tree had grown from a pecan given to Sukey Morris by one of Andrew Jackson's men as they traveled homeward after the Battle of New Orleans." No official records of Sukey Morris are known to exist, but it is thought she might have been the child of squatters who were living along the Natchez Trace. The area was still Indian territory at the end of the War of 1812.

The 1986 History of Carroll County provides some additional documentation of the tree's history:

In the book "Westward to the Roundtop", Mr. Morris mentions the pecan tree as a landmark in 1830. Families coming to Carroll County from North Carolina passed the tree on their way to Lexington from the Roundtop Community; it was already bearing fruit.

(Source: History of Carroll County, p. 63)

A life that spanned three centuries

The pecan (Carya illinoinensis) is long-lived, like its brethren, the hickories, and many other members of the walnut family. It reaches maturity at around 150-200 years. Many specimens survive 250 years or longer. If the Big Pecan Tree was planted in 1816, it would have been 188 years old in 2004, the date when Ric Brooks' photograph was taken.

The Big Pecan Tree, already supported with cables and filled with concrete by tree surgeons, was heavily damaged by a windstorm in 2000. For a few years, one large branch survived, as seen in the photo. Brooks commented on the tree's sad condition:

The tree was in pretty bad shape when I took that picture. That one limb was about 12 feet off the ground and stretched out about 15 feet. Just the limb itself was very impressive. You can see in the picture that the trunk was dying by then. It was alive but the person I was with and myself both knew that it wasn't long for this earth.

(Source: Email from Ric Brooks, November 20, 2009)

Now the tree has completely died. The remains of its trunk have been cut down and pushed into a gully, apparently in 2008 or early 2009. The D.A.R. plaque telling the legend of Sukey Morris has been removed.

"There's nothing left to see," a park secretary assured me, when I telephoned to inquire about the Big Pecan Tree. She underestimated my curiosity. I would enjoy seeing even the stump.

On the web:
Natchez Trace Pecan, Wildersville, TN

Hackberry in winter

2009-11-23T10:39:00.000-08:00

Twiggy branches of a mature hackberry tree

Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) is a tree that's quite easy to identify in winter. If you learn to recognize its amooth-but-warty bark and its extremely twiggy silhouette, you can name this tree with confidence.

Celtis occidentalis, the common hackberry, grows in most of the United States except for the states west of the Rocky Mountains (Those states have other varieties of hackberry trees.) It produces small berries (actually, drupes) that are eaten by a wide variety of wildlife. Because of the sweetness of the berries, one of hackberry's common names is "sugarberry".

This tree grows on the grounds of St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. It's a very large tree. I am fond of it.

Ten Native Trees with Leathery Leaves

2009-11-12T11:16:00.000-08:00

Trees with tough, durable foliage

Leathery leaves of Quercus stellata (post oak)

Image courtesy of Iowa State Extension Service

In tree books and nursery catalogs, the term "leathery leaves" is sometimes used. What does "leathery" mean?

Leathery is an adjective that is used to describe a leaf's texture -- that is, how it feels when you hold the leaf between your fingers. A leaf's texture is a entirely separate characteristic from its size, shape, or color.

"Leathery" is the opposite of delicate. Leathery leaves are tough and durable. They are a bit thicker than most leaves, and they're somewhat pliable. They have a texture that's similar to thin leather. They are not easily torn by accident. A leathery leaf would never be called "limp" -- rather, they are substantial leaves.

When you're wondering if a tree's foliage would be described as leathery, examine a mature leaf. The leaves of a few tree species are leathery as soon as they pop out of the bud, but the leaves of various others are delicate at first but become leathery as they mature.

Homeowners should be aware that leathery leaves are slow to deteriorate. Raking will be needed to remove fallen leaves from the lawn.

Here are some examples of deciduous native trees of North America that have leathery leaves. The Latin names are linked to the trees' respective pages in the USDA Plants database.

Alnus serrulata -- Hazel alder (leaf image)
Fagus grandifolia -- American beech (leaf image)
Liquidambar styraciflua -- American sweetgum (leaf image)
Magnolia acuminata -- Cucumbertree magnolia (leaf inage)
Prunus serotina -- Black cherry (leaf image)
Quercus alba -- White oak (leaf image)
Quercus bicolor -- Swamp white oak (leaf image)
Quercus prinus -- Chestnut oak (leaf image)
Quercus stellata -- Post oak (leaf image)
Rhododendron maximum -- Rosebay rhododendron (leaf image)

The Popular Poplar Tree

2009-11-11T21:51:00.000-08:00

A tree-climbing poem

The upper branches of a cottonwood (poplar) tree -- probably

a plains cottonwood, as this photo was taken in Colorado

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonhurd/ / CC BY 2.0

How would it would feel to climb high in a poplar tree, with gusts of wind swaying the branches? Oh, my, I am definitely too old for that! It gives me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach to think about it.

The Popular Poplar Tree

When the great wind sets things whirling
And rattles the window panes,
And blows the dust in giants
and dragons tossing their manes;
When the willows have waves like water,
And children are shouting with glee;
When the pines are alive and the larches,---
Then hurrah for you and me,
In the tip o' the top' o the top o' the tip of
the popular poplar tree!

Don't talk about Jack and the Beanstalk---
He did not climb half so high!
And Alice in all her travels
Was never so near the sky!
Only the swallow, a-skimming
The storm-cloud over the lea,
Knows how it feels to be flying---
When the gusts come strong and free---
In the tip o' the top' o the top o' the tip of
the popular poplar tree!

---Blanch Willis Howard

Maybe the poet's poplar was popular because it was so easy to climb. Or maybe she just enjoyed the sound of the similar words.

I came across this little poem in Arbor Day Leaves: A Complete Programme for Arbor Day Observance, Including Readings, Recitations, Music & General Information. This booklet was compiled by N. H. Egleston of the USDA Forest Service and published in 1893 by American Book Company of New York.