Preparing for Our Cox Arboretum Field Trip

Trees we will see:

Flowering Dogwood

The Flowering Dogwood has gray bark that is broken in to small blocks and looks like an alligator’s skin. Flowers come out before the leaves in spring.  The white parts are actually “bracts” and not the petals of the flower. The leaves of the Dogwood are smooth and oval. Dogwoods are soil improvers because they accumulate calcium.

River Birch

River Birch trees that occur in the wild usually have excessively flaky, dark gray to black outer bark with hints of an orange and cream inner bark.

Mud is a natural bed for the seedlings and the tree is excellent for holding stream banks and thus helping to keep erosion in check.  The sap was used by early settlers to make birch beer.

Bald Cypress

As a deciduous conifer, the leaves of Baldcypress drop off in autumn, and its cones are round balls that release their seeds in autumn and winter.  The bark of Baldcypress is tan to reddish-brown and has a shredded and stringy appearance.

 In its native habitat, it displays a peculiar habit of raising conical "knees" from its roots. The function of these growths is something of a mystery, although some believe it is a way to help the roots get oxygen.

 Hawthorn

The Hawthorn tree is named after the haw meaning hedge- and it is in the rose family.  It is thorny, so its name actually means “thorny hedge”.  Most Hawthorns have short multiple trunks with a globular canopy. Hawthorn leaves and berries have medicinal uses.  Some believe that the Hawthorn was where Jesus’ crown of thorns came from and others believe that it is bad luck to trim a Hawthorn tree because fairies live in them.

Redbud

 Redbud, also known as Eastern Redbud or Judas Tree, is abundant in the southern two-thirds of Ohio . It announces the arrival of spring with its showy, lavendar-pink flowers that typically open in April, long before the leaves emerge.

It can be identified by the simple heart-shaped leaf.  It is a member of the bean family and has a pod shaped fruit in the late spring.  The bark is brown and black with orange between the ridges.  Early settlers picked the redbud blossoms for salads.  Inner bark and roots were used to help colds, flu and fever.  Stems were used for basketry.

 Buckeye

Ohio Buckeye, the state tree of Ohio, is found primarily as an understory tree in the western half of Ohio, where the soils are more alkaline in pH.  Ohio Buckeye has opposite, palmately compound leaves that are clean and medium green in spring. Each leaf has five leaflets.  The bark of Ohio Buckeye is somewhat variable, but becomes broken into subtle flaky ridges with maturity. It is light gray to light brown, and develops more prominent fissures and long plates with age.  Tannic acid, a toxic substance in buckeye nuts, make them inedible to humans,  horses, and cattle, however squirrels often eat them.  Buckeyes are known for their nuts, brown with a light eyespot like the eyes of a deer. 

Sycamore

This species is easily identified by its height, its spreading canopy with several massive branches, and its white bark in winter. The paths of creeks and rivers can be easily seen from a distance in winter by following the white bark of barren Sycamore canopies.  Branches regularly peel off large sections of gray-brown bark in mid-summer, revealing a smooth, white interior bark that then becomes the exterior bark.  It has a fruit that is like a sticky ball.

Sweetgum

 This cone shaped tree has leaves with the shape of a star.  They produce a fruit that hang by the thousands from dormant branches through winter.  They are spiny, round, and woody.  They are slow to decompose.  Sweetgum seeds are eaten by eastern goldfinches, purple finches, sparrows, mourning doves, northern bobwhites, and wild turkeys. Small mammals such as chipmunks, red squirrels and gray squirrels also enjoy the fruits and seeds.

 Beech

The bark of American Beech is its trademark, being steel gray in color and very smooth and thin, even on old trees . It is frequently vandalized by people who like to carve their initials on the trunk, since the smooth bark will not obscure the graffiti, even decades after the carving. The trunk flares more at its base than most other trees, and transitions to the shallow root system.  American Beech was a sign of fertile soil to early settlers and was quickly removed so the plow could take over and farming for food could begin.

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