Category: Plants
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Common Trees of the Sierra Norte, Estado de Oaxaca, Mexico
Overview of the Sierra Norte. The Sierra Norte of Oaxaca is located about 40 miles north of Oaxaca de Juárez, in the eponymous state of Oaxaca, Mexico. The region extends across nearly 3,300 square miles, and is bordered by the regions of Papaloapam and Cañada to the North, and Valles Centrales, Sierra Sur, and Istmo…
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Fruiting Fungi & Woody Plants in the Piedmont
When we explore the Piedmont woods, our attention sometimes shifts away from the showy flowers, stately trees, and singing birds to the diminutive mushrooms around us. Many of these mushrooms have key and important associations with the woody plants that so often structure our definitions of ecosystems. Fungi & Oaks. In the Piedmont, there are…
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When Spring Comes Early: Shifting Bloom Times of Piedmont Ephemerals
Spring ephemerals are woodland plants that bloom early in Spring, capturing sunlight that hits the forest floor before the trees leaf out. Some of these ephemerals, like Trout Lilies (Erythronium sp.) have colonies that are over 100 years old! We see spring ephemerals, their delicate leaves and incandescent flowers, during their epigeous or above ground…
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Eastern Cottonwood
The Eastern Cottonwood (Populus deltoides) is an uncommon tree occupying well-drained, moist soils in the Piedmont and Mountains of North Carolina, but stretching north to Canada, west to Montana, and south past Monterrey, Mexico. The Eastern Cottonwood is dioecious, with a single tree dangling catkins in green (female) or red (male), but not both, in…
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Sugarberry Review
Even in January, one might still find ripe red-brown drupes hanging off the sugarberry (Celtis laevigata). This uncommon tree species of the American Southeast can be found in bottomland forests or in areas with more basic soil. It’s best identified by its warty bark and leaves with a mostly smooth margin. The Lumbee people, an…
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Maple-leaf Viburnum
This week’s plant feature is the Maple-leaf Viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium). The Maple-leaf Viburnum or Dockmackie, is found across eastern North America, ranging from Quebec to Texas. In the Piedmont, the Maple-leaf Viburnum is a small shade-tolerant shrub, found in bottomland and upland forests. This shrub typically grows in forests that have been growing for at…
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Weevil Pests of North Carolina Trees
Weevils are beetles (order Coleoptera) in a superfamily (Cuculionoidea) of beetles with long snouts that host chewing mouthparts. These species tend to be quite small – less than a quarter inch in length, and they notable as economically significant insect pests. In North Carolina, Conotrachelus nenuphar is most commonly seen in April and May, with…
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Tree of Heaven
The Tree-of-Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) is a non-native, invasive tree species found throughout the United States and North Carolina. Originally introduced from Central China in the 1780s, this invasive species most often occupies woodland borders and edge communities near logged oak and loblolly pine stands locally. The Tree-of-Heaven can be identified by its large pinnately-compound leaves,…
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Fringetree
This week’s plant feature is the fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus), also known as old man’s beard because of the way its pretty, white petals droop when it blooms in April. According to Donald Culross Peattie, the fringetree “contributes to the higher things of life: it is a raving beauty when in mid-spring it is loaded from…
Sense of Place 