Those of you who know me know that I'm a real nature buff. Since my days as a Proto-Rick I've loved bugs and reptiles and generally reading natural histories cover-to-cover. Lately I've been more interested in plants; I think it's been since the Pandemic that I've really fallen in love with trees.
With me it's never been about "Trees" in general, or about "facts about stuff" (although I have plenty of those, as anyone who knows me will tell you). I'm not even that horribly concerned about classification - at some point, if you're microscopically examining root notes or counting bark scales, you have to start questioning your life choices. No, what interests me is the simple strangeness of each kind of tree: the little things that make me suddenly sit up and notice. For instance, within the past month - and I can't explain why - I developed an interest in ash trees, particularly...
White ash (Fraxinus americana). Considering that billions of mature ash trees were destroyed by the emerald ash borer beetle, I had no real experience with the species outside of their skeletal remnants. I remember when the infestation of EAB swept through Michigan like a silent inferno back in the early 2000's; suddenly there were warnings against moving firewood, and the forests were full of bare trees pockmarked with beetle holes, bark hanging off like leprous skin. There was a sudden craze for "beetle furniture" as niche lumber companies rushed to saw up and cash in on all that dead wood before it rotted (although the fern-like beetle tracks on the wood surface were rather interesting). Seeing the devastation in real time really brought home the impact of invasive species: no longer were they just "rats destroying exotic birds on faraway islands", they were right in my backyard, powerful raiders sweeping across vulnerable native populations and wreaking ecological havoc. After this I began to pay more attention, to see the invasive species in Michigan and attempt to do something about them.
I naturally thought that ash trees were pretty much extinct. So imagine my surprise when I realized that the thin, stick-y saplings growing along the roadside around my town were not the invasive Ailanthus I had originally took them for, but young ash trees! It dawned on me that the surrounding countryside, and many "neglected" spaces, were absolutely burgeoning with ash seedlings and two-year saplings. Now I look for them everywhere I go: the perfectly proportioned seven-leaflet leaves; the strangely geometric growth pattern of the twigs; the pale gray, furrowed bark. The more I learn about them, the more I love them.
Shagbark Hickory (Caryata ovata). This is definitely the shaggy dog of the tree world, literally: the bizarre, hanging strips of bark can be nearly 3 feet long and half an inch thick; its shape is basically a thick pole with twisty, crazy limbs and branches coming off it; once mature, it produces masses of rock-hard little nuts and newspapery leaves in fall. They have a habit of going hollow in the middle, even as the rest of the tree seems to flourish. Homeowners - especially those who love their lawns - tend not to like shagbarks, and in general they are perceived as an oddity of old-growth forests.
I have a sentimental connection to shagbarks; there was one in my yard growing up. I remember the cool, dense shade it provided in the summer, and its masses of huge-leaved foliage. Being stupid kids, me and my siblings would rip off huge pieces of bark just to examine them, which apparently didn't hurt the tree much. My dad (a lawn-lover if there ever was one) hated mowing over the nuts, and once he discovered it was hollow, had an excuse to cut it down. We found a mummified squirrel inside the trunk; the limbs were home to the red-headed ash borer Neoclytus acuminatus, a curious longhorned beetle that looks and moves exactly like the northern paper wasp Polistes fuscatus. Inside the rotten sections of the trunk, we found gigantic scarabid beetle grubs, probably from the Dynastinae (rhinoceros beetle) family; I tried to keep them alive long enough to see what kind of beetle they would turn into, but they got parasitized, possibly by an ichneumon wasp (which I never got to see either). In the end, all that was left of a once-mighty tree was a hole in the ground.
So I'd love to have a shagbark in my yard again. But aside from its sentimental and aesthetic virtues, shagbark hickory is deceptively powerful. Hickory wood is renowned for its strength, hardness, and ability to flex without cracking - there's a reason "Old Hickory" was a compliment(?) when attached to Andrew Jackson. Hickory is remarkably hard to work, even by machine. When you pick up a hickory stick, you feel the difference from anything else, the inherent density and hardness. And of course, shagbarks are keystone species in any environment: the nuts are beloved by squirrels, and the hollow trunks are homes to rodents, birds and many other species.
I've been trying to propagate hickory from seedlings I find growing in the yard (thanks to squirrels); problem is, their taproot is about three times longer than the seedling itself, and I invariably end up cutting it with the shovel. Even if I manage to get the whole taproot, it's difficult to find pots deep enough to accommodate them. I've currently got one seedling in the backyard; time will only tell if this surprisingly delicate little infant will manage to grow into a mighty tree.
Red mulberry (Morus rubra) Red mulberry, and its nonnative cousin white mulberry (with which it often hybridizes) are common "junk trees" that people tend to cut down or rip out without giving them a second thought; even the berries are often dismissed as "poisonous" (a common slander for just about any fruit that doesn't come in a package) or a staining nuisance, especially when birds gorge on the fruit and shit purple streaks everywhere. The trees themselves are stringy, twiggy messes that sucker constantly, have twisty limbs, and seem bound and determined to grow up in the most inconvenient places.
I first noticed mulberry trees because of their titular fruit; the sight of a tree burgeoning with juicy, blackberry-like fruit really jumpstarted my passion wild foraging. While the fruit is delicate and really hard to keep (and has these stupid green stems that are hard to remove), you certainly can get a lot of it, and it's excellent for preserves and baked goods. While white mulberry itself isn't nearly as good, I've found a particular red-white hybrid that produces enormous, perfectly sweet and firm berries (that unfortunately look like huge white grubs...but that can be fixed further down the road). The round, waxy leaves are quite pretty in the summer, and provide food for some of the largest moths in the US.
As to its wood, I've read and seen some conflicting reports. Traditionally mulberry wood was mostly used for caskets (in parts of Germany, mulberry was associated folklorically with death or the Devil). It may be good for bows, although it has a tendency to crack. There's even some claims of the inner bark being turned into paper. This February I cut down a small (about 2'-diameter) live mulberry tree; I found out firstly that it was much, much denser than I anticipated, and seems to have a lot more strength than I previously thought - there are several large mulberries in my yard, with one bearing limbs almost 30' feet in length and no sign of cracking. The wood definitely has a long grain, more "strappy" than stringy, and I suspect it's capable of bearing quite a bit of weight despite being rather soft. The wood itself starts out yellowish, but exposure to sunlight causes the heartwood to turn a rich, soft, "cherry chocolate" color. The main problem with mulberry as a timber source is that there isn't a single straight section in one tree! The grain tends to twist and realign and wrap around knots like there's no tomorrow. While I'd love to figure out a way to use all this wood (besides burning it), it could be that mulberry is just one of those trees that doesn't have a lot of use for human applications - it's only good at being itself.
Osage orange (Maclura pomifera) I have a peculiar obsession with this tree. It didn't actually start with its bizarre fruit - the "green brains" with their white, gluey interiors and edible seeds; it was its French name, bois d'arc, that drew my attention: literally, "Tree of the bow". Osage orange was famous for its use in American indian shortbows, the buffalo-slayers, and was thus heavily prized and guarded in its native range around the Red River in Texas. The yellowish wood is super-strong and flexible, yet durable, and an osage orange bow might be handed down from father to son for generations. But what really got the ball rolling for this strange, thorny tree was the settler's need for strong hedges to fence in their flocks (this was before the invention of barbwire). Through cuttings, seeds, and saplings, osage orange spread out from Texas and became established in almost every state east of the Mississippi; though they adapted well to the new soils, they seemed content to remain along their hedgelines, not spreading too far. With attention and aggressive pruning, they proved to be incredibly hard and resiliant natural fences. Ultimately, barbwire proved to be a much faster, more flexible alternative, and osage orange hedges were either torn up or neglected, allowing them to grow into huge trees. In Michigan, you'll pretty much only find this tree planted artificially, along old fencerows.
I'm pretty determined to grow them in my yard, to have my own traditional osage orange hedge. So far my primitive attempts at cutting-propagation (putting sticks in water or moist potting soil) have failed; my hardwood cuttings tend to bud promisingly but wither quickly. I haven't found any young seedlings I can just scoop up and plant. As of this writing, I have several fruits disintegrating in a bucket of water; the pulp and any nonviable seeds will float to the top where they can be scooped off, while viable seeds sink to the bottom. Since I already overwintered the fruits outside in the freezing conditions, the seeds should be stratified and ready to plant once conditions become less "freezy"...whether or not I will get any seedlings out of this, only time will tell.
Boxelder (Acer negundo) Those of you who are familiar with boxelders are probably thinking, Is he crazy?! Boxelder is the sine qua non of junk trees, growing everywhere it's not supposed to, to the point that it seems invasive in its own native habitat (although it has become invasive in many other countries). It's generally ugly, with tattered-looking leaves often pimpled with mite galls, its rumpled bark covered in moss, gnarled limbs scrambling for sunshine even as it suckers indecently. It releases masses of winged seeds (they are in the maple family), and attracts the infamous red-and-black boxelder bugs which nest in houses. The tree even smells nasty when wet or freshly-cut. Besides boxes and decorative wood-turnings, boxelder isn't good for much except pulp.
But what I admire about boxelder is its sheer tenacity. I have never seen a tree so willing to sucker, even when quite dead. There's a boxelder stump in my backyard that simply refuses to die (and which I've recruited in an experiment - but that's for another post). Since they grow in poor soil, you will often see them knocked over, yet they continue to grow while horizontal. I have even seen trees snapped in half, hanging by little more than a thread, that still kept growing and putting out leaves year after year as if nothing had happened. I have a boxelder stump around my firepit - no roots at all, mind you - that just suckered this spring! While this all may seem a little monstrous, like some kind of zombie tree, to me it's a symbol of adaptability and stone-stubbornness against all odds. Unglamorous as it may be, I find boxelder worthy of respect...and even a little bit charming.
Honeylocust (Gleditsia triacanthos) If there's ever a tree that makes me think, mammoths probably fed on this, it's honeylocust. These thorny trees are so hardcore, even their thorns have thorns on them, to the point of thorns coming out of thorns coming out of thorns. These "hanging thorn clusters" actually pop out of the trunks of mature trees, making me suspect that they are defenses against getting uprooted by hungry proboscideans, who have a habit of knocking over trees in Africa when they can't reach the tender leaf-tips. One brush with these nasty defenses, and sensitive-skinned elephants would probably stick to the pods the tree drops. The pods themselves, before they ripen, produce a sweet, sticky pulp you can squeeze out like toothpaste; it tastes like a light combination of banana and kiwifruit, with a bit of nuttiness and sometimes a grassy bitter note (a bit like tamarind, just not as sour). Once the pods fully ripen the pulp becomes stringy and dry, and the you can hear the seeds shaking around like maracas. One thing about honeylocust, these trees are tall - I'm not used to seeing fabacinae (pea-family) trees get so big.
I'd like to add an aside for the much-maligned Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia); this smaller, less-thorny relative of the honeylocust is considered an invasive species outside its native territory in southern Appalachia. It's definitely a tree to keep an eye on, as it suckers early and forms impenetrable thickets, conquering vast swathes of wasted land and being extremely difficult to remove. But it does have its uses: though considered toxic, the leaves are actually quite good for livestock in small quantities; the roots, which like all pea-relatives hold nitrogen-fixing bacteria, enrich the soil around them; and the flowers are fragrant, invaluable to the honey industry, and are quite edible. Its wood also makes amazing firewood, kicking out a lot of BTU's, and its lumber is hard, sturdy, and resistant to rot. So while my affections remain with the native honeylocust, I still have a spot in my heart for its dark, invasive cousin.
Of course, this is just Part 1! More awesome tree fun in the next post...
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