Famous live oaks of Oak Alley Plantation

Quercus virginiana in splendid maturity

Oak Alley Plantation is famous for a long lane, lined with live oaks, which leads to a large mansion. The plantation is located near the Mississippi River, about three miles from Vacherie, Lousiana, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

The live oaks were planted early in the 1700s by an unknown French settler. In 1722, monks traveling through the area made note of the double row of vigorously-growing young oaks in their journals. The trees were 120 years old (or more) when the current plantation home was built in the late 1830s. The 28 trees of the alley were the architect's inspiration for the 28 columns of the house.

The alley is 80 feet wide and about 800 feet long. Each side has 14 trees. The planter of the oaks planned well for their ultimate size. He knew that he would never see them in their maturity; yet, he thought about what they could become and what their space requirements would be. The magnificence of his vision is fulfilled, three centuries later.

Live oak facts

Southern live oak (Quercus virginiana) is nearly always wider than it is tall. Live oaks commonly reach a height of 40-60 feet with a spread of 1-1/2 times the height or more. Individual specimens may be 80 feet in height and 120 feet or more in spread. Live oaks often live 400 years, and individuals may live longer.

The tree is renown for its extremely dense, heavy wood. The acorns are relished by a wide range of wildlife; they are said to be the sweetest of all oak acorns. Native Americans gathered and stored live oak acorns to thicken their stew. They also pressed them and extracted an oil.

Like all live oaks, Quercus virginiana is an evergreen tree, holding its leaves throughout the winter months. In spring, old leaves drop off and new leaves are formed.

More tree history at Oak Alley Plantation

Another interesting bit of tree history took place at Oak Alley Plantation,  In the 1840s, Antoine, a talented gardener who was a slave of the plantation, grafted the first paper-shell pecan trees. By 1865, 126 grafted papershell pecan trees were growing on Oak Alley Plantation. The variety of pecans which Antoine created became known as "Centennial".

Related websites:
Images of Oak Alley from Life magazine, 1952
Photographs of Oak Alley's trees and the mansion
Amazing images of big live oaks
Official site: Oak Alley Plantation

Photo credit: Wikimedia image by Rolf Müller, 2003.

Autumn colors of some native trees

Leaf colors in autumn

Green Ash	yellow
WhiteAsh	reddish-purple
River Birch	yellow
Blackgum	scarlet
Cottonwood	yellow
Flowering Dogwood	scarlet
American Elm	yellow
Hackberry	yellow
Hawthorn	scarlet
Hickory	yellow
Red Maple	red to yellow
Silver Maple	yellow
Sugar Maple	yellow, orange, red
Northern red Oak	russet to red
Scarlet Oak	russet to red
White Oak	reddish-purple
Pin Oak	bronze or red
Osage-orange	yellow
Redbud	yellow
Sassafras	orange to scarlet
Serviceberry	red-orange
Sumac	red
Sweetgum	yellow to red
Tuliptree	yellow
Black Walnut	yellow

Hackberry: A great wildlife tree

Celtis, celtis occidentalis

Leaves and fruit of common hackberry (celtis occidentalis). Berries are indicated with arrows. Image from Wikipedia.

The small berries of hackberry trees are relished by many songbirds in fall and winter, including the bluebird, cedar waxwing, yellow-bellied sapsucker, mockingbird and robin. The reference book, American Wildlife and Plants,* lists over 25 different songbirds who include hackberries in their diet.

The berries are also eaten by gamebirds such as wild turkey, quail, doves and pigeons. And as you might expect, squirrels eat the berries, and so do beaver, possum, raccoons, skunks, gray fox, wood rats, and (in Texas) the ring-tailed cat.

Some species of hackberry trees are called sugarberries or honeyberries which helps to explain why the berries were used by the Native Americans and why people still use hackberries for jelly and wine.

One or more of the eight species of hackberries are found in nearly every state from the Rocky Mountains east. In western Kentucky where I live, our hackberries are celtis occidentalis or common hackberry.

For us, common hackberry is usually a medium to large tree, but in less hospitable conditions, it may not attain such size. It's a versatile tree that tolerates many growing conditions from wet to dry, but it doesn't like permanently swampy areas and it doesn't like acidic soil.

Forestry guide Steve Nix at About.com cautions that common hackberry produces surface roots that can interfere with lawn mowing and raise sidewalks. Think carefully about where to plant the tree, but do consider it because of its great wildlife value.

Cultivars are available from nurseries, or you can transplant a seedling from the wild in early spring or late fall. Starting them from seed requires some patience -- if planted outside, the seeds germinate in 1 to 2 years.

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Related:
Hackberry information page in the USDA Plants Database
Hackberry Emperor butterfly

* American Wildlife and Plants by Alexander Martin, Herbert S. Zim, and Arnold L. Nelson, published by McGraw Hill Book Company in 1951. The book is out of print, but it's often available from used book dealers.

Common hackberry in summer, Hopkinsville, KY

The Spotsylvania Stump

Battle-ravaged tree, preserved at the Smithsonian Institute

A few years ago, we spent four days visiting the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. To say that the museums are packed with interesting exhibits is an understatement; the Smithsonian must be experienced to appreciate it. I wish we lived closer!

At the time we visited, the Museum of American History was closed for renovations. A small exhibit from the history museum, "Treasures of American History", was set up in the Museum of  Air and Space.

The history museum's curators chose about 150 items to represent American culture and history, including Mr. Roger's sweater, the ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz, R2D2 and his buddy CP3O,  the ENIAC, Thomas Jefferson's Bible, George Armstrong Custer's coat, George Washington's uniform and battle sword, Abraham Lincoln's top hat, and the Spotsylvania stump.

The Spotsylvania Stump is all that remains of a large oak tree that once grew in a meadow near Spotsylvania, Virginia. On May 7-19, 1864, Union and Confederate troops engaged in the Battle of the Spotsylvania Courthouse. On May 12, 1864, during a fierce encounter, the oak tree was mutilated by hundreds of bullets from small arms. During the battle, the tree's trunk broke, leaving only a stump standing. Estimates of the number of casualties vary, but 25,000 or more Union and Confederate troops were killed or wounded.

About a year later, the fallen oak tree had disappeared -- hacked up and carried away by souvenir hunters. Even the shattered trunk had been dug out of the ground and removed. When a Union division visited the battlefield and discovered that the stump was missing, Major General Nelson A. Miles made inquiries and located it in the smokehouse of an inn proprietor. Miles confiscated the stump and presented it to the U.S. Secretary of War.  (Source.)

The oak tree's trunk, just below the place where it was severed, was 22 inches in diameter. The stump still contains bullets that it took the day the Spotsylvania meadow became a battlefield. It is a testimony to the ferocity of the fighting and the tremendous destruction of life that occurred at Spotsylvania and other Civil War battlefields.

Credit: Museum of American History photo from Wikipedia.

Which state trees are members of the pine family?

1/3 of the official state trees belong to the family Pinaceae.

Links on the state names in the list below lead to an official state symbols page. Links of the Latin tree names lead to the USDA Plants database.

• Alabama - Longleaf Pine - Pinus palustris
• Alaska - Sitka Spruce - Picea sitchensis
• Arkansas - "Southern" Pine - Genus Pinus
• Colorado - Blue Spruce -Picea pungens
• Nevada - Bristlecone Pine and Piñon/Nut Pine - Pinus aristata and Pinus edulis
• New Mexico - Single leaf Piñon - Pinus monophylla
• North Carolina - Native Pines -Genus Pinus
• Idaho - Western White Pine - Pinus monticola
• Maine - Eastern White Pine - Pinus strobus
• Michigan - Eastern White Pine - Pinus strobus
• Montana - Ponderosa Pine - Pinus ponderosa
• Minnesota - Red Pine - Pinus resinosa
• Oregon - Douglasfir - Pseudotsuga menziesii
• Pennsylvania - Eastern Hemlock - Tsuga canadensis
• South Dakota - White Spruce - Picea glauca
• Utah - Blue Spruce -Picea pungens
• Washington - Western Hemlock - Tsuga heterophylla

I was disappointed with the images -- if any -- that most of these states showed for their state tree. Students would never be able to learn the identifying characteristics of their state trees by looking at most of those photos.

Read more about the pine family (Pinaceae) at Conifers.org.

Ginkgo tree on Google Hot Trends

Smelly ginkgo seeds are a curiosity and a problem.

A week ago today, I brought my morning coffee to the computer and sat down to read the news. One website led to another, and before long, I was taking a look at Google's Hot Trends -- a list of the top 40 search terms of the past few hours.

Usually when I glance through the Hot Trends, I don't know what or whom most of them are. (I don't keep up very well with "popular culture", as my son calls it.) So, I was surprised to see a familiar name on the list -- "gingko tree". Yes, the tree Ginkgo biloba was one of the top 40 Hot Trends of that moment.

Why did the curiosity of thousands of internet users focus on the gingko tree at about 7:00-8:00 A.M. PDT on October 5, 2009? I think I can guess. Two headlines from Google's list of ginkgo-related news articles and blog posts offer a clue:

• Smell has some cities ripping out ginkgo trees
• Why Do Gingko [sic] Tree Berries Smell Like Dog Poo?

As the female ginkgo tree dresses herself in the beautiful yellows of her autumn habit, foul-smelling seeds mature and drop to the ground. It is ironic that these two events coincide.

The seeds are about the size and color of wild yellow plums. The odor of the fleshy part of the seed is often compared to rancid butter (both contain butanoic acid) or to feces.

Technically, the ginkgo tree's seeds are not fruits. The gingko is classified as a gymnosperm because it produces naked seeds. The squishy, smelly part of the seed is a fleshy shell that covers the harder life-containing center of the seed.

A standard solution for the seed problem has been to plant male ginkgoes. Male trees produce pollen-bearing cones. It is interesting that the pollen contains motile sperm (sperm that can move themselves). The sperm fertilize ovules on the branches of female trees. Fertilized ovules develop into seeds.

It is unusual for gymnosperms to be dioecious-- that is, to have separate male and female plants as the ginkgo does. Ginkgos have a latent ability to be monoecious: male ginkgoes sometimes start producing seeds, foiling the best-laid schemes of landscapers and homeowners.

Various (male) cultivars have been developed and are available through nurseries. Or, you can grow your own ginkgo tree from seed. But please don't plant ginkgoes where the seeds will ever be a problem -- even if you're starting with a male tree. Plant them in a place where you can see and enjoy the unique beauty of the tree -- but a place where you won't smell or step on the seeds, if the tree ever produces them.

Bur oak: America's largest acorn

Mossy cup oak acorns

It's tree trivia time! Did you know that the acorn of the bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) is North America's largest native oak acorn? A very large bur oak acorn might measure up to 2 inches in length.  Most bur oak acorns are in the range of 1 inch to 1-1/2 inches in length.

The bur oak is sometimes called  mossy cup oak, a name that refers to the fringe around the edge of the acorn cup. Usually, the cup covers about half of the nut, but occasionally, the cup will be so large that only the tip of the nut sticks out of the fringe. Another common name for the bur oak is overcup oak.

The twigs of bur oaks have corky ridges. If you click the photo above and enlarge it, you can see ridges on both sides of the twig, giving it an irregular, thickened outline.

The acorn in the photo is growing on a bur oak that my husband planted. In the fall, he gathered fallen acorns from the big bur oaks at his childhood home in Independence, Missouri. When he got back to Kentucky, he planted the acorns in clumps of half a dozen, a few inches deep. He wasn't particularly fussy or scientific about it. A number of little oak trees came up the next spring, and he thinned them down to this one.

This tree, and several other bur oaks he planted at the same time are now about 15 years old. At 25-30 feet, they are big enough that they are becoming significant trees in our landscape. They grew slowly at first because they were establishing their roots, but now they seem to be growing two  feet or more annually. They have been bearing acorns for several years.

The bur oak, a member of the white oak family, is native to much of the eastern United States and part of eastern Canada.  It commonly lives for several centuries and individuals trees in favorable conditions may live much longer. In maturity, it may reach 100 feet in height and in spread. Many creatures of the wild enjoy its acorns and some nibble the twigs as well.

Two trees with red leaves in the fall

Autumn's earliest reds in these two Kentucky natives

In the earliest days of autumn, red leaves appear within the tangled, brushy fencerows of rural Kentucky roads. These bright spots of fall color are often provided by two native trees -- sumac, in its several species, and sassafras. I enjoy seeing them progress into an overall state of crimson as the season continues.

Sassafras (Sassafras albidium) can grow to be a large understory tree (up to 50 feet tall) in the woods. The larger sumacs, such as flameleaf (Rhus copallinum) and staghorn (Rhus typhina), can reach 35 feet of height in ideal conditions, such as at the sunny edge of a grove of trees. However, in the fencerows along roads, these trees don't often attain such heights.

Along the county and state roads, the road departments use regular mowing, brush cutters, and herbicides to discourage woody growth. Our regional electric company uses a horrible, aerial "bush hog" under power lines. It chops and breaks every growing thing to a 10-foot height. Farmers repair their fences and clear the trees and bushes from the fencerows from time to time.

These sorts of setbacks don't kill out the sumac and sassafras. Both these trees have extensive root systems that will shoot up new trees. Individual stems may perish, but sassafras and sumac colonies will persist as long as their root systems survive to send up root suckers. That explains the widespread occurrence of these two trees in the fencerows.

In addition, both trees produce fruit that is eaten by birds. When birds rest and roost on the fences and in the bushy growth of the fencerow, seed-laden droppings fall to the ground. This is one of nature's methods of  planting new trees.

Sumac provides one of nature's most reliable autumn reds. The fall colors of sassafras include bright yellow, orange, red, and purple.