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

Black cherry: A tree for wildlife

Prunus serotina, an American wild cherry

The United States has fourteen species of wild cherries and all of them are important food sources for wildlife. The authors of American Wildlife and Plants mention the following as widespread species of particular importance:

• the eastern and western chokecherries (Prunus virginianaa)
• the bitter cherry of the western states (Prunus emarginata)
• the pin cherries of the northern states (Prunus pennsylvanica)
• the black cherry of the eastern states (Prunus serotina)

The black cherry (Prunus serotina) is the largest of the American wild cherries, and also the largest member of the rose family in North America. It is a native tree to every state east of the High Plains. Here in Kentucky, it can probably be found in every county.

In the primeval forests, black cherries grew 100 feet tall with long straight trunks, reaching for sunshine in competition with other trees. Large black cherry trees are rarely found today, but they were once prized for their wood which was used as a substitute for mahogany in furniture making and home construction.

Often nowadays, black cherry is seen along country roads where it springs up from the droppings of birds perched on the fence wires. In such open conditions, its height is typically 30 to 50 feet, and it has a short trunk. Its spread may be half its height; it's not a wide tree.

Farmers sometimes eradicate black cherries from pastures because wilted leaves contain hydrocyanic acid (cyanide) which may be fatal to livestock if consumed in quantity. I can imagine this problem happening particularly when the livestock lack adequate forage. Farmers should remove fallen leaves or fence out cherry trees so livestock aren't grazing beneath them. An annual mowing would keep down any seedlings that sprout.

Wild cherries were used in the pemmican of the Plains Indians. Native Americans made teas and other concoctions from cherry bark and leaves to treat various conditions, including childbirth pain, coughs, bleeding, diarrhea, lung problems, and nervous conditions. I remember Smith Bros. Wild Cherry Cough Drops from my childhood. I suppose that recipe drew upon folk-medicine uses of wild cherry.

In the backyard, a black cherry tree is a nature-lover's delight. When the clusters of black fruit are on the tree (and on the ground under the tree,) it will be visited by a large variety of songbirds, gamebirds. small mammals, and possibly even foxes, beavers, raccoons, possums, deer, elk, moose, bears, or mountain sheep (depending on where you live, of course!) If you want to make cherry jelly or wine, you'll have to compete with the wildlife for the fruit.

Prunus serotina is called "intolerant" in Enjoying Our Trees, a publication of the the American Forestry Association. It will not grow in the shade of other trees. If it is to grow with other trees, an opening must be created for the little black cherry so it receives enough sunshine. It also does not tolerate poor drainage; though it enjoys moisture, standing in water or growing in a permanently saturated soil will injure or even kill it. It will not do well in compacted soil, either.

According to Native Trees, Shrubs, and Vines for Urban and Rural America, black cherries are resistant to wind and ice damage, and they will tolerate occasional dry spells. The tree grows fairly quickly. In good conditions, you can expect it to gain at least two feet in height most years, sometimes more. Prunus serotina usually lives well over a century, perhaps even 175 years.

If you can't find a black cherry at a garden center or mail-order nursery, you can plant your own with seeds collected from the wild. (Birds do this all the time!) Plant them 1/4 inch deep in the fall in the site where you want the tree to grow. When the seedlings come up, select the best one and pull out the others.

I've mentioned some books in this article. You can find their bibliographical info at the bottom of this column.

technorati tags: wild+cherry, black+cherry, whiskey+cherry, prunus+serotina, wildlife+tree

Feral pigs damage ecosystems

Releasing pigs into the forest was a terrible idea.

 Feral pigs at Cape Canaveral, FL -- NASA photo

Mast is an old-fashioned word. The term refers to fallen nuts and fruits that are available to wild animals as winter food.

Sometimes we still hear or read about "mast trees". Often the term is used when talking about food sources for wildlife. Personally, I think of mast trees mainly as oaks, hickories, beech, and walnuts.

While browsing through the archives of Scientific American on the Library of Congress website recently, I came across an article about raising pigs on mast.

In 1864 when the article was written, the American chestnut was plentiful, as well as nuts and acorns from the trees I mentioned above. The author, J.T.D. of Springfield, Illinois, also identifies pawpaw, persimmon, haw and the hazelnut as forms of mast.

J.T.D. wrote that hogs who fed on mast produced pork as good as that from corn-fed hogs. He believed that "sweet acorns" were some of the best mast for producing tasty pork. He advised anyone moving to the "West" (west of the Appalachians) to buy land suitable for turning pigs into the forest where they could eat for free.

Sources of U.S. feral pigs

Hogs set loose in the woods by long-ago farmers like J.T.D. are part of the reason there's a feral pig problem in many parts of the United States today. We can't blame the old-time farmers exclusively, though. There are several other sources of today's feral pigs:

1. Early Spanish explorers brought hogs to the New World, some of which went wild.
2. Hogs were released for hunting purposes in several areas of the U.S. about 100 years ago.
3. Some mindless people are releasing pigs into the wild to this day--illegally in most cases -- so they can hunt them.

Feral pigs: Spoilers of nature

Here are just a few reasons why it's undesirable to have feral pigs in the woods.

1. They compete directly with native wildlife for food.
2. They root and wallow in wildlife habitat, wetlands, stands of endangered plants, croplands, and anywhere they go.
3. They eat small animals and the eggs and young of ground-nesting birds.
4. They transmit disease to domestic stock, and even to humans.

Read more here:
Feral Hogs in Michigan
Feral Hogs: Wildlife Enemy Number One (Alabama)
History of Wild Boars
Google search for "feral hogs"

Best fruit trees for wildlife

Important food-producing trees for birds and animals

The title of this post --"best fruit trees for wildlife" -- was a search engine query that brought someone to this blog today.

This phrase brought several thoughts to mind.

• Wildlife eat some fruits that humans don't often eat (such as dogwood and red-cedar berries).
• Some fruits that humans eat are not eaten by many animals (such as pawpaws and wild plums.)
• Some trees produce nuts and seeds (not fruits) that are important wildlife foods.
• Wildlife often eat flower buds, leaves, bark and twigs, not just the fruit, nut, or seed.

Keeping all that in mind and remembering that the word "wildlife" means everything from hummingbirds to moose, here are some great native trees for wildlife.

Ashes Aspens Beech Birches Cherries Chokecherry Cottonwoods Crabapple Devil's walking-stick Dogwoods Elms Firs Hackberry Hawthorns

Hickories Maples Mulberry Oaks Persimmon Pines Pricklyash Redcedar Serviceberries Spruces Sumacs Viburnums Willows

Sources: Hightshoe, Martin, Zim & Nelson

To obtain information that is specific to your area, contact your county extension office and/or your state wildlife conservation office. Don't hesitate to consult them. After all, we are paying their salaries with our tax dollars. Most of these public servants are pleased to be asked and very willing to help.

Beautiful blossoms of the wild plum

Prunus americana

Wild plum blossoms

The wild plums are blooming now and their fragrance is wonderful. I enjoy walking through the part of the yard where they grow and experiencing their blossoms with several of my senses.

Wild plum blossoms always remind me of my childhood on a ranch in Rock County, Nebraska. , Wild plums grew in the shelter belt north of our house. We came through that "tree-pen" (as we called it) often as we walked home from school, and when the wild plums were in bloom, we brought my mother a bouquet of plum blossoms.

My mother didn't mind our massacre of those little plum trees because she never picked plums there anyway. The plums in the shelter belt had very sour yellow fruit. We all greatly preferred the wild plums from our pastures in northern Loup County -- sweet red plums.

Tonight after the sun was completely down, I went out to the plums in our yard for a few minutes to see what their blossoms are like after dark. (I know this may seem odd, but I'll explain shortly.) The fragrance is just as sweet with a bit of night dew on the petals . There wasn't much natural light on the plums due to cloud cover and the new moon, but they were illuminated a little from the distant yard light. The white blossoms were the only part of the little trees that were visible. One might imagine they were floating in the air.

Why was I curious about their appearance at night? This 1923 poem, by Oreck Johns:

Wild Plum

THEY are unholy who are born
To love wild plum at night,
Who once have passed it on a road
Glimmering and white.

It is as though the darkness had
Speech of silver words,
Or as though a cloud of stars
Perched like ghostly birds.

They are unpitied from their birth
And homeless in men's sight,
Who love, better than the earth,
Wild plum at night.

By Orrick Johns. Published in The New Poetry: An Anthology of Twentieth Century Verse in English. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1923. The MacMillan Company, New York, 1923.

Related post: Bud and twig of American wild plum

The ongoing quest for my persimmon trees!

Bark of the persimmon tree; Diospyros virginiana

This evening, my son and I walked down a narrow back-road near our home. The road has an interesting mix of natural features. It starts out on top of a hill in a wooded area and goes down the slope to a valley with a small stream. Along the way there are woods, pastures and fields along the roadsides.

We noticed several persimmon trees growing along the roadside in the valley, so this might be a good place for me to dig up a seedling or get a cutting of persimmon root.

I will actually need to acquire several persimmon trees because they are not self pollinating, according to the nursery catalog that I was reading a few days ago. I guess I'll have a little persimmon grove.

There's a black walnut growing fairly near the place where I want to plant some persimmons, so I was a little worried about that. Black walnuts emit a chemical called juglone which is poisonous to some plants. However, the West Virginia University Extension Service and various other reputable internet sites say that persimmons are tolerant of juglone, so I guess I don't have to worry about that!

I also learned that I can get a bundle of 50 persimmon trees from the Kentucky Division of Forestry for just $30, but that's approximately 45 more persimmon trees than I want. Even if I plant 10 and half of them die, I'd still have 40 extra persimmons. I suppose I could try to give them away.

The Kentucky Division of Forestry's order form can be downloaded as a pdf document (574 K.) It lists about 30 species of native tree seedlings that are available. (All are native except the Chinese chestnut.) Prices are good through March, 2007 -- just a few more days.

Related post: I want a persimmon tree!

Attracting bluebirds

Trees and plants for bluebirds, advice about bluebird house placement

Eastern bluebird - United States Geological Survey photo

If you want to attract bluebirds year after year, consider planting some of the fruit-bearing trees and other plants that they like. Fruits are an important part of their diet, though they eat insects, snails, and spiders as well. Here are some of their favorites:

Fruit-bearing trees for bluebirds: Dogwood Redcedar Wild cherry Serviceberry Sumac Bayberry Holly Hackberry

Other fruit-bearing plants for bluebirds: Pokeweed Virginia creeper Poison ivy Mistletoe Wild grape Blackberry Elderberry Bittersweet Blueberry

Where to place a bluebird nestbox:

In unspoiled nature, bluebirds nest in holes or cavities in dead trees. Obviously, dead trees don't have much foliage around the nest area -- just vines, at most. Bluebirds prefer their man-made houses to be placed in similarly open areas. They don't like a birdhouse that is hidden within a bushy clump of leaves and branches.

A steel fencepost in the longest size that you can find (7 ft. is generally available) makes a good, inexpensive pole for mounting a bluebird house. The steel post is difficult for animal predators to climb and if the box is mounted at the top of it, it is at an adequate height to satisfy bluebirds.

Bluebirds (and many other birds) prefer to nest near a source of water. If you don't have a stream or pond, provide a birdbath and be sure to tend to it.

Bluebirds are territorial. They are require at least a 100-yard circle of "private property". If you live in a neighborhood of closely-spaced houses and your next-door neighbor has a bluebird nest in his birdhouse you probably won't get a nesting pair in your yard. However, you'll still be able to enjoy the birds as they come to your yard to feed on the fruit you've provided for them!

Related post: Eastern redcedar: A tree that birds love

American Wild Plum: Bud and Twig

Prunus americana

Flower bud of wild plum in early spring

I was out on the south hillside of our small property today where the wild plums grow, and I snapped this photo of the buds. Unfortunately, these plums always bloom early and are almost always caught in a late frost. The warm days on the south-facing bank trick them.

We have another small plum thicket where the ground slopes slightly to the north, and even though they have full sun, they don't bloom until after the last frost and they usually bear fruit.

I started all of our wild plums from seeds. I was given some local wild plums, a sour yellow variety, and I saved some seeds and planted them. The next year, I happened to be in Kansas when the wild plums were fruiting, and I brought back a mess of plums and planted some of their seeds with my local plum seedlings. This was a sweet yellow plum. I can't tell any difference in the appearance of the trees or the fruit, but I can certainly tell which is which by the flavor.

Wild plums send up a lot of suckers, and their natural tendency is to form a thicket. We put them on a sharp bank in our yard that we don't want to mow, and they are doing a good job of taking over. The trick is that you must stop mowing the area where you want the thicket to develop.

I read tonight in a U.S. Dept. of Agriculture publication that three cultivars have been developed from the American wild plum: 'Blackhawk', 'Hawkeye', and 'De Soto.' I would guess that they are sweeter and larger than most wild plums.

I have written more about my personal history with the wild plum in an article on my other blog, Prairie Bluestem. Please see "Wild Fruits of the Nebraska Sandhills"

I Want a Persimmon Tree!

Diosppyros virginiana, possum tree, possumwood, common persimmon

I've been thinking about planting a persimmon tree. Persimmon trees are native to this area (and to the entire southeastern United States.)


Around here, people call them "possum trees" because possums love the fruit and will climb the tree to get it. The fruit is popular with raccoons, skunks, foxes, mice, deer, and various birds as well.

Persimmon leaf and bark
USDA photo

The wildlife value of the tree is nice, but I hope there will be enough fruit left for us people, too! I have been reading persimmon recipes for years and I want to try some of them. I have enjoyed the persimmon desserts I've tasted a few times at church potlucks.

The tree is a member of the ebony family, and its very distinctive bark helps to identify it when fruit is not present. The bark is black with blocks arranged in a grid pattern. If you look between the plates, you can see an orange coloration (more obvious on younger persimmon trees.) The bark on older persimmons looks like a wooden representation of alligator skin!

Here's something interesting from history about the flavor of the persimmon: Captain John Smith of Jamestown fame wrote in 1607, "...the fruit [the persimmon] is like a medlar; it is first green, then yellow and red when it is ripe: if it is not ripe, it will drive a man's mouth awrie with much torment, but when it is ripe, it is as delicious as the apricot.."

I know where a persimmon tree grows in the backyard of an old store building. I had been thinking about looking around for a seedling or collecting some seed next fall when the fruit drops.

However, I read somewhere tonight that the tree is best propagated with a root cutting. So I don't know! This old store building sits next to someone's house, and maybe they won't want me to dig around in the yard looking for a root! I would have to ask permission even to look for a seedling.

It may be best to just buy a persimmon tree. A cultivar called "Meador" has been selected for sweetness and is available from nurseries.


Persimmons are not too fussy about where they're planted. They send down a deep taproot, so they can tolerate a dry location. They don't mind heavy soil but they don't like shade. A persimmon should do OK in the site I can offer it, a well-drained south-facing spot on the edge of a broad ridge.