The Senator Falls

So, those of you who are up to speed on your big tree news may already know this -- but one of the world's largest trees collapsed in flames last weekend.  It was one of those news oddities that got picked up on morning radio stations and when I heard the story, you can imagine I went straight to the interwebs to investigate more.  

'The Senator' as the tree was lovingly nicknamed, was a baldcypress growing in Longwood, Florida.  Today I was on the National Mall and snapped a few shots of The Senator's genetic cousin, Taxodium ascendens. Baldcypresses can be the East Coast's largest trees and The Senator was designated in 2006 as the largest tree (of any species) east of the Mississippi.  It was estimated to be about 3,500 years old, ranking it as the fifth oldest tree in the world.  

While this species on the mall is probably about 50-65' high, The Senator was 165' high until 1929 when a hurricane topped it.  Shortly before its demise the plant stood at about 125' - just 25' shy of the Statue of Liberty.  The diameter of the trunk measured at just over 17'.  That's probably about 5-6 times bigger than the tree in these photos.  Those dimensions are quoted in this article, though it should be noted that arson is no longer being considered as a source of the fire that ultimately felled the tree.  

Balcypresses are given their name since they are deciduous cypresses, losing their leaves in the winter, which is a rare occurrence for a gymnosperm (i.e. non flowering plant).  The habit is upright and conical.  The plants thrive in swamps and saturated conditions.  It's this tolerance to anaerobic conditions that have lead to its more frequent use as street trees (since the conditions under concrete sidewalks are similarly limited in oxygen).

Early Winter Textures

I was in Tenleytown in DC the other day and was struck by the combination of textures in this relatively ordinary urban garden. Unfortunately I only had my iPhone 3GS, which is beginning to feel the effects of 2 years of abuse (well...Not quite 2 years -- my contract is up in March at which point I can get a new phone at a discount!).

In any case, the Spirea thunbergii looks beautiful in autumn and it's easy to forget what lovely fall color it has.  The toasted honey hue looks perfect with the grasses flanking it on both sides.

As much as I love the look now, I'm not sure I'd ever combine S. thunbergii with grasses due to the way they'd look in spring or summer -- I'm not sure I'd buy that they'd look good together.  But I'll have to keep an eye on this garden come spring to reconsider.

More Bird Stuff

A few weeks ago, I saw this bird while running along the Potomac.  I was fairly sure it was a great blue heron (Ardea herodias), but couldn't be sure that the beak was yellow, which is one of the tell-tale ways to positively ID the bird.  

That's about as close as I got to it, before the bird took off.

 

Last week I was running near through the Constitution Gardens and saw the same species of bird.  This time, I could spot the beak.   

 

I was able to get much closer to him, too, as he (or she) was transfixed by something below the water's surface.

 

Not sure how much longer the bird would stay in that spot though, since a fleet of ducklings were quickly making their way over for a visit. 

 

Vinca minor

These pics were also taken during the run I mentioned in yesterday's post.  I had passed by this modest little stand of Vinca minor several times already and kept putting off getting a few pictures of it.  Honestly, I thought I'd encounter a better use of this common groundcover...but why put off til tomorrow what you can do today?

As I mentioned, this plant is often used as a groundcover, actually, I think it's only used as a groundcover.  And as far as groundcovers go, I rank this high above Pachysandra or Hedera helix.  The flowers are pretty in the spring, much more attractive than Pachysandra and it's not likely to take over your landscape (and buildings) the way English ivy would. 

 

That said, it is noted by some as invasive, though I've personally discovered its relative, Vinca major 'Variegata' to be far worse.  My folks put some in planters in their backyard once and in the fall, dumped the soil, which contained a few of the variegated vines.  They overwintered and began to colonize the backyard.  We're steadily removing them now.  

Vinca is in the Apocyanaceae or dogbane family.  The flowers are fairly distinctive among this family which includes Plumbago auriculata and Alyxia ruscifolia.

Salix babylonica 'Bablyon'

Yesterday, temperatures in DC reached the upper 70's and even 80° in some areas!  This was why I moved back to the area.  Enough of winter, or even chilly temperatures.  The warm weather called for a run along the Potomac, where the weeping willows (Salix babylonica 'Babylon', perhaps) have just begun to leaf out.  

Apologies for the unfocused pic below - I was after all, on a run and didn't stop for too long to take pics.  But you should still be able to see the long, narrowly lanceolate leaves which are also slightly serrated.  The plant is in flower too and on some specimens you can observe bright green catkins emerging.

The leaves on Salix are the one of the first to emerge in the spring and one of the last to drop in the fall.  Even when they aren't present, however, the bark makes this tree fairly recognizable.  Gray bark, with deep fibrous fissures and an overall corky appearance, is specific to this plant. 

I hedged my bets when I called this tree "Salix babylonica 'Babylon' perhaps."  That's because willows are difficult to accurately identify.  They easily hybridize within the genus, so this could be a strange cross of Salix alba (white willow), a weeping cultivar of Salix alba (like 'Tristis') or a cultivar or Salix babylonica (weeping willow).  It could even be Salix x blanda (Wisconsin weeping willow).  I have called it as Salix babylonica 'Babylon' because, according to Dirr, the true species is quite rare - he even muses that it no longer exists. And this is clearly a weeping form. 

 Finally, we can't talk about this plant, without mentioning the 1932 song written by Ann Ronnell. It's been covered countless times, but I love the Willie Nelson version, accompanied by Tin Hat Trio.  You can listen to the track here.

Weeping willow tree
Weeping sympathy
Bent your branches down along the ground
and cover me
Listen to me plea
Hear me willow and weep for me
Willow, willow, weep for me

Red Maple

I did a quick tally on my archives at this site, as well as on NYPAOS and realize I have posted about a grand total of seven maple species: Acer griseum (paperbark maple), A. capillipes (snakebark maple), A. palmatum (Japanese maple) and A. pseudoplatanus (sycamore maple) here on Planted Cloud, and A. platanoides (Norway maple), A. saccharum (sugar maple) and A. campestre (hedge maple) on NYPAOS.

 

And yet, I've never mentioned Acer rubrum, or red maple (AKA: swamp maple), which is one of my favorite of the genus.  While the fall color is highly variable (despite the common name, the leaves on this species sometimes aren't red, but yellow and orange, too), I love this plant for its spring flowers.  The photo above was taken about two weeks ago.  It's of a 25 year old specimen at my folks' place.  As you can see, the new stems are red -- they turn this color in winter/fall -- and the buds are fattening up.

 

Here's the same tree, two weeks later.  The buds have flowered into tiny puffballs of marginally diminutive flowers of petals, stamens and pistils.  The tree is monecious, which means that there are female and male specimens of the tree.  Which is a wonderful segue way for me to implore you all to pick up a copy of Dirr. At first glance, his reference book is pretty dry.  But when you really read through all his descriptions you pick up wonderful passages like the following: 

I have assessed the peculiar sexual preferences of this species -- actually quite kinky for in a give population of seedlings staminate, pistillate, monoecious and monecious with hermaphrodite (bisexual) flowers occur; an interesting anecdote concerns male trees in a 25-tree popularion on the Georgia campus that grow much faster than their seed bearing sisters; my supposition...so much stored carbohydrate is required for fruit formation that vegetative growth is reduced.  

It's simply not often enough that one employs the term 'kinky' in reference to a tree!

Anyway, back to the tree.  In addition to being highly variable in fall color, red maples differ greatly in their cold tolerance, depending on where they were first grown as seedlings.  A seedling from the south may not perform well at all in northern climes and vice versa.  These are reasons that there's a tremendous market for red maple cultivars ('Armstrong,' 'Autumn Glory' and 'October Glory' are a few classics).  Indeed, if your client wants red fall color on a red maple guaranteed, you don't want to take your chances with generic nursery stock.

Rhapis excelsa

First of all, spring is absolutely here.  Thank goodness.  First of all, last Friday, on an afternoon run by the Potomac, I saw this:

How wonderful to finally see bulbs sprout.  Then on Saturday I met my students at the USBG and spied Galanthus, Crocus, Hamamelis, Abeliaphyllum, Jasminum nudiflorum, Helleborus, Iris reticulata and a new plant that I'd never seen before, Edgeworthia (more on that later). 

But before we completely abandon the tropics for the season a final post, courtesy of my aunt: Rhapis excelsa or lady palm.  My aunt sent me the photo above and it was a sure bet she was shooting Rhapis.  The plant is native to China but was first popularized elsewhere in Japan, since the plant can handle low light levels and indoor environments.

We used Rhapis as a hedge at the Edition: Waikiki.

That's me, running quality control (smirk) on the plants we got for the hedge.  As you can see Rhapis spreads by sending up new shoots and though the plant is in the Arecaceae or palm family, many think it looks somewhat like bamboo because of this habit.  

My aunt sent this shot above, too and it demonstrates well the effects of high levels of sunlight on the plant.  If the plant gets too much light, it yellows (that's because the sun is basically overcooking the chlorophyll in the leaves, it's not because the plant has become chlorotic). Getting a deep, rich green hue is important to Rhapis growers.  In fact, a nurseryman in Waimanolo told me he fertilizes the plant with chicken droppings which works very well.  It probably can be left unsaid that the nursery itself had an unbearable stench!

 

It's quite possible the leaf in this gate detail at Park Guell is of a lady palm.  The plant became quite popular in Europe  during the Victoria era and Park Guell began construction right at the end of this period.   Rhapis is derivative of the ancient Greek work for rod and refers to the sharp shoots on which the leaves are borne.

Pittosporum tobira

Yesterday, I received a comment that Coccoloba reminded the reader of jade plant (Crassula).  They commented that the loose architecture of the branches reminded them of that houseplant.  While I can see that resemblance, they are not related.  Neither is Crassula related to Pittosporum tobira, though when my aunt texted me this photo from her Florida trip, she had the same suspicions.

I had no doubt the photo she sent was Pittosporum, or Japanese cheesewood.  Though native to Japan, the plant is salt and drought tolerant and thus very popular as an ornamental in Florida.  Left unchecked it can become a small tree though often it's used as a low, sprawling shrub or hedge.

The specimens above, growing in the Parc del Clot in Barcelona, could possibly be the smaller cultivar, 'Wheeler's Dwarf.'  A half-hearted attempt to find out why the plant is called "cheesewood" -- which I think is an awfully unappealing name -- brought no specific results.  Presumably the wood smells, or tastes like, cheese.  I'll have to check this out the next time I see it...

Coccoloba uvifer

It seems like it's been ages since I've been blogging -- at least about plants!  We're gonna wrap up this week with some tropical plants my aunt photographed while in Florida a few weeks ago.  I love that these days, any one of my friends or family members can send me a text message with a photo of a plant and the simple question, "What is this?"

This plant was an easy call -- Coccoloba uvifera, or seagrape, is ubiquitous in Florida.  It's a multistemmed sprawling low tree with large, thick leaves.  The plant is incredibly tolerant to salt and wind.  The flowers are diminutive, but the fruit are pendulous bunches of grape-like berries.

The plant is native to Florida and the Caribbean and the fruit can be harvested to make a jelly.  The roots have been used to treat dysentery and a gum from the wood can be used as a remedy for sore throats.

Coccoloba literally means 'lobed fruit' and uvifera means 'bearing eggs' - presumably both refer to the distinctive fruit of this plant.

Snowy Cedrus deodara

Some of you may have noticed that I have a tag called "iPhone Pics."  That's not a blatant ad for Steve Jobs, so much as a contrived way to make excuses for less-than-stellar photos.  Like this one, taken from the front seat of my car, on Glebe Road in Arlington.

 

Despite the crummy picture, I wanted to post it since I had recently written about Cedrus deodara and realized, after contemplating this mostly-lovely (though limbed-up) specimen in an otherwise uninspiring landscape, how nicely the branches hold snowfall.  

In contrast, take Cedrus atlantica glauca or blue atlas cedar, growing off Columbia Pike (below).  The shorter needles mean the plant holds less snow and as a result is largely unaffected by the weather. 

Here's another deodar cedar, standing kitty corner to the blue atlas.  This time the tree hasn't been limbed up, but it is crowded by the white pine (Pinus strobus) to the right. 

Ilex verticillata

I was at the University of Maryland on Friday, participating in the final studio review at the Architecture School.  Approaching the building, I was reminded of how much I like Ilex verticillata or winterberry holly.  

 

One could say that it's appropriate enough that these shrubs (which look lovely when they sprawl through large spaces) are trimmed and hedged in a very architectural manner.   They are, after all, outside of the Architecture School's building.

 

I blogged about Ilex verticillata last year, when I saw one specimen growing in the High Line (come to think about it, there had to be a male there somewhere).  

I was desperate to use these this autumn when I renovated my folks' place in Virginia.  As beautiful as it is, it's sadly quite tasty to deer as well.  Instead, I opted for Aronia arbutifolia.

American Beech

A few posts back, I promised to write about the American beech, or Fagus grandifolia, at Dumbarton Oaks.  To be sure, if you have been to Dumbarton Oaks, you know precisely which tree I'm talking about.  Even people who wouldn't be able to identify this tree as American beech would remember this particular specimen, as striking as it is.

 

Beeches are extremely slow growing (and Fagus grandifolia is more slow growing than its relative, the European beech, or Fagus sylvatica). In Central Park, specimens of European beech abound, but it's hard to find an American beech like this.  Low-branching and with shallow roots resting on the ground, this is an ideal specimen for introducing the plant to students. 

It's easy to identify a beech by its smooth (elephant skin-like) bark, which is often covered with graffiti.  In fact, a part of beech trunk, with the words "D. Boon Killd Bar o this tree 1775" inscribed on it, is on display at the Grandfather Mountain Nature Museum, though it's been proven that Daniel Boone himself was not the graffiti artist.

Of course, in the Virginia-Maryland-DC area, American beeches are downright ubiquitous.  I encountered the one above while running on the C&O Canal in Georgetown.  In its native forest habitat, beeches tend to sucker and so you will also find communities of beeches. I've been on old tracts of land where the only tree around is the beech.  That's the result of this suckering tendency and because it has very hard wood  (which consequently protected it from harvest until the chainsaw was invented).

The fall color is...okay.  It has a rusty golden-orange color which is just fine.  The leaves are ovate and the presence of very small spines along the margin help distinguish it from Fagus sylvatica, which has an entire margin.

Beeches produce nuts that provide food for dozens of birds and forest mammals.  The seedcaps are fuzzy, four-winged capsules which are persistent on the tree through early winter or spring.  The plant also provides habitat for many caterpillars.  The wood is used for furniture, flooring and woodenware.

Though the bark alone makes beeches easy to identify, the buds are also very distinctive.  Long and slender, they have always reminded me of a spindle on a spinning wheel.  I'm guessing, more specifically, in some deep recess of my memory, they remind me of the cursed spindle that Sleeping Beauty is fated to touch. I looked up a clip online and am pretty sure that's where my association comes from.  Since it's Friday, and who doesn't like a bit of Tchaikovsky and Disney, see for yourself here.

PJM Rhododendron

Here's another iPhone shot of a Central Park plant taken on a run this week: Rhododendron 'PJM' group.   I say "group" because the specimen below is a PJM type of cultivar, but I can't fathom which specific cultivar it is.  PJMs are crosses between R. carolinianum and R. dauricum var. sempervirens.  They are named for Peter J. Mezitt, founder of Weston Nurseries in Massachussetts.

 

PJM Rhodis have much smaller leaves than R. maximum or R. catawbiense, two other popular species.  The flowers are a bit smaller, too and don't bloom in umbels.  Some cultivars, like this one, turn a bronzy purple in winter. 

The plant typically blooms in spring but many of these group will bloom again in late fall.  I've seen cultivars of PJMs bloom almost all winter, though in less profusion.  Overall, the plant may remind you more of an Azalea-type Rhododendron, but if you count the stamens on this flower, you will see there are ten; Azaleas have five stamens.

Sycamore Maple and Incestuous Nomenclature

First of all, apologies.  It's already after 5 on a Tuesday and I've yet to update this site.  I'm in New York until tomorrow and have been a bit overrun with meetings and catching up with some good friends.  But I still managed to get in a run in Central Park yesterday and today.  

 

I stopped to take these shots of sycamore maple, or Acer pseudoplatanus, since we've been covering trees with fall color quite a bit lately and this tree is probably at its peak. As you can see, while the leaves are not as fiery as its cousin, Acer saccharum, they are a fairly clear, bright yellow.  The leaves are also serrated, unlike sugar maple, Norway maple, or even hedge maple.  Acer rubrum, or red maple, also has serrated leaves, as do other species in the genus, but I've yet to post on them.  But, if you're familiar with red maple leaves, you may notice that the leaf below is a broader shape, with five distinct lobes, whereas A. rubrum often has trident-like leaves.  The lobes on sycamore maple also are a touch fatter or wider at the mid-point; red maple lobes consistently taper in size and are widest near the middle of the leaf, narrowing to the points.  Finally, and perhaps obviously, red maple leaves this time of year are usually, well, red.

Sycamore maple is called thus because the bark has a thick, scaly bark similar to sycamore (Platanus occidentalis).  And here's a good example where nomenclature can get a touch confusing:

London plane tree is Platanus x. acerifolia and the species name is indicating the leaves look like Acer, or maple.

Norway maple is called Acer platanoides because the leaves look like london plane tree, or Platanus x. acerifolia.

Sycamore maple is called Acer pseudoplatanus because the bark (below) looks like sycamore (and probably because platanoides was already taken!).

The whole thing gets a bit cyclical, like a flawed math formula, doesn't it?

The tree is not native and while it is not as outrageously invasive as Norway maple, it can conquer over natives due to its high tolerance to salt, drought and wind.  It's just that resilience which lead to the plant being brought here from Europe and Southwest Asia, sometime in the late 19th century.

Aster simplex

Here are a few shots from this morning's run.  Aster simplex, or panicled aster.  The more current botanical name for this plant is actually Symphyotrichum lanceolatum, but its older name can still be applied.  As I've mentioned before, I think the word 'Aster' is decidedly less of a mouthful than Symphyotrichum. 

 

This specimen was found growing along an unmowed roadside and is very common this time of year.  It blooms in mid to late summer until the first frost.  It's not as showy as other asters, but you can buy seeds of the native plant from various sources.  To me, it's a great addition to a wildflower meadow and the small white flowers would be a great alternative to baby's breath (Gypsophila) for cut flower arrangements. 

Finally, like all members of the Asteraceae family, this flower structure is composed of disc florets and ray florets.  The disc florets are the very small yellow petals that compose the inside 'eye' of the flower.  They are the seed-producing flowers, whereas the ray florets (in this case, the white petals) are decorative; primarily present to attract pollinators.