Black Gum - Nyssa sylvatica

Cornaceae - Dogwood Family
"A Year With the Trees" - Tree Number 22
Black Gum
Nyssa sylvatica

Spring

Black Gum leaves and flowers in May at the Asheville Botanical Gardens.

The vibrant green leaves of the Black Gum tree stand out in the forest in the spring time.  The small flower clusters are still on the tree in May.  This Black Gum tree lives at the Asheville Botanical Gardens.
http://www.ashevillebotanicalgardens.org/

Summer 

The Black Gum Tree in the Summer

The Black Gum Tree in the Summer

Dark spots often decorate the Black Gum leaves.

The beautiful Black Gum tree stands with its branches straight out from it's trunk.  It paints it's leaves with dots of color and then changes to brilliant orange and red.  It is said that migratory birds feast on the fruit of the Black Gum, for they see the color from high in the sky.  The fruit is one of the first fall tree fruits to ripen.

Fall

Black Gum, Nyssa sylvatica

Black Gum, Nyssa sylvatica

Black Gum, Nyssa sylvatica

Winter

The Black Gum Tree Bud

The Black Gum Bark

This beautiful tree has bark that looks like little rectangular blocks seperated by deep crevices. This Black Gum tree is the Pisgah National Forest near Brevard, North Carolina.

Another good way to ID a Black Gum tree is by the horizontal arrangement of the branches to the trunk.

Do you know how to imitate a Black Gum tree?

For the love of the trees,
Becky

Always appreciate the beauty of nature that surrounds us.

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Flowering Dogwood

Cornaceae - Dogwood Family
"A Year With the Trees" - Tree Number 21
Flowering Dogwood
Cornus florida

Spring

Flowering Dogwood in the spring

Cornus florida, Flowering Dogwood, in the spring

The Dogwood trees are so beautiful this time of year!!!!  The leaves are opening up and growing by the hour.  Some trees are in full flower and some are leafing out.  It is a wonder filled time of year.

Flowering Dogwood, Cornus florida, in the spring

Flowering Dogwood, Cornus florida, in the spring

The Flowering Dogwood Tree in March

A flowering Dogwood in April.  

The Dogwood Tree - Cornus florida

The beautiful Dogwood is in full spring bloom in the mountains of North Carolina.  I am always in awe of this incredible display of flowers in the sky, and always look so forward to April to see this sight again.

Summer

The Flowering Dogwood Tree in July

The flowering dogwood has these little green berry-like fruits called drupes during the summer. The leaves are getting a bit worn come summer time. However, to see this tree on a July summer day with the fun filtering through the leaves, well, I am not sure it gets much better.

Many animals and birds will depend on these drupes for food when they ripen in September.  The drupes will be bright red by September and can usually be seen on the trees until December.

The Flowering Dogwood tree in July.  The veins on the Dogwood leaves are quite distinctive the way they all curve up towards the tip of the leaf.

Fall

Cornus florida, Flowering Dogwood in the fall

Fall Flowering Dogwood Tree

Beautiful red berries,

A fall red blush,

I can not pass by without pausing

and being grateful for this moment.

Winter

The Flowering Dogwood Tree

This Flowering Dogwood lives at the Asheville Botanical Gardens. http://www.ashevillebotanicalgardens.org/

You can always recognize the beautiful flowering dogwood tree by it's very distinctive bark. The bark is broken up into little interesting shaped pieces. You can also identify this tree by it's buds that are all upright and remind me of little birthday candles all over the tree. Sunsets and dogwoods can paint such beautiful scenes.

Flowering Dogwood Bark

The drops of rain on the dogwood tree were so beautiful on every limb. The winter dogwood tree stands out with its thousands of limbs lifting up to the sky with buds on the ends of each limb. The water droplets shining like small diamonds in the morning light looks like stars.

For the love of the trees,

Becky

Alternate-leaved Dogwood

Cornaceae - Dogwood Family
"A Year With the Trees" - Tree Number 20
Alternate-leaved Dogwood
Cornus alternifolia


Winter

Alternate-leaf Dogwood

The Alternate-leaved (or leaf) Dogwood in this photo lives at the Botanical Gardens at Asheville.  This is a beautiful garden with many native southern Appalachian trees.  http://www.ashevillebotanicalgardens.org/

The Alternate-Leaved Dogwood - Cornus alternifolia

Spring

Alternate-leaved Dogwood

These images show the springtime ivory-colored flowers of the alternate-leaved dogwood tree. 
The leaves look like a flowering dogwood except they are alternate instead of paired opposite.

"Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf." Albert Schweitzer

Alternate-leaved Dogwood

The flowers bloom in April and May.  These flowers are grouped together in a flattened top type of arrangement called a cyme.

Summer

The Alternate-leaved Dogwood

This tree is called an under storytree, for it grows under the forest canopy.  It often will have horizontal branching and a flat-topped crown.

Fall

Alternate-leaf Dogwood

The Alternate-leaved dogwood is a small tree which may reach up to 30 ft and 6 inches in diameter. The tree has slender branches that grow horizontal to the ground. The Bark is green as a young tree and retains some green as it grows older. The leaves are alternate and clustered mainly at the end of the limbs that appear almost whorled. The fruits are blue black drupes with an unpleasant odor. The dead twigs turn bright yellow. This tree has white flowers in April and May.

I found it interesting when I read that it is possible that the common name of Dogwood may have come because “dogs were washed with a brew of its bark, hence Dogwood.”

For the love of the Trees,
Becky

Black Haw - Viburnam prunifolium

Caprifoliaceae - Honeysuckle Family
"A Year With the Trees" Tree Number 19
Black Haw

Viburnum prunifolium

Winter

Photos coming for the Winter Black Haw tree.  If you want to submit a photo or drawing to me, please send them to me at celerylady@gmail.com.

Spring

Black Haw - Viburnham prunifolium

This Black Haw lives at the Asheville Botanical Gardens beside Reed Creek.  AshevilleBotanicalGardens.org.

Black Haw - Viburnam prunifolium

Summer

Photos are coming for the Summer Black Haw tree.  If you want to submit a photo or drawing to me, please send them to me at celerylady@gmail.com.

Fall

The Red Color of the Black Haw Leaves still clinging to the branches bringing color to the woods.

Black Haw Bark

For the love of the trees,

Becky

Eastern Hophornbeam - Ostrya virginiana

Betulaceae - Birch Family
"A Year With the Trees" Tree Number 18
Eastern Hophornbeam
Ostrya virginiana

Winter

This Hophornbeam lives at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, North Carolina.  These catkins stay on the tree through the winter to help identify this tree.

Eastern Hophornbeam Bark has long shredded pieces of bark.

The Hophornbeam Tree

Spring

Ostrya virginiana

This Hophornbeam lives at the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, North Carolina.

The leaves are doubly saw toothed and elliptical; they are simple and alternate. The leaves have straight parallel side veins and short hairy leaf stalks. The bark of this tree is reddish brown, thin, and often looks shreddy. The wood is very hard, like the American Hornbeam. This tree grows to 50 feet high and 10 inches in diameter, so it is not a very large tree. It is called a understory tree, for it grows in the understory.

The fruit looks like hops, an ingredient of beer. Wildlife eat the nutlets and buds of this tree.


Summer

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ostrya_virginiana_fruit.jpg

Fall

Hophornbeam leaf art in my journal.  These leaf edges are called  doubly serrate.

Ostrya virginiana fruit nutlet, Eastern Hophornbeam
Photo by Brooke Priddy Conrad

Ostrya virginiana catkin buds, Eastern Hophornbeam
Photo by Brooke Priddy Conrad

The North Carolina Arboretum has five beautiful Eastern Hophornbeams that live near the amphitheater at the NC Arboretum.  This family is known by the leaves that are sharp toothed, simple and pinnately veined.  This family is also known for the long, staminate catkins.

This time of year you can see the fruit as well as the developing catkins.  The leaves are just starting to turn on these trees to a bright yellow. 

For the love of the Trees,
Becky

Seams and me at the North Carolina Arboreum in Asheville on a beautiful day in Sept.
Photo by Brooke Priddy Conrad

American Hornbeam - Carpinus caroliniana

Betulaceae - Birch Family
"A Year With the Trees" Tree Number 17
American Hornbeam
Carpinus caroliniana

Winter

This tree is easily identifiable by it's bark. Once you see it, it is always easy to spot. It is a blue-gray colored bark, smooth and strong; it actually looks muscular.

This American Hornbeam lives at the Asheville Botanical Gardens in Asheville, North Carolina.

www.ashevillebotanicalgardens.org

Spring

 American Hornbeam - Carpinus caroliniana

 American Hornbeam - Carpinus caroliniana

The spring ironwood tree has small green leaves on the branches. The alternate, simple leaves are double-toothed and small (1-4 inches). The fruit is called a winged nutlet which is attached to three-pointed leafy bracts. These are quite distinct and very hard to describe.

Summer

The American Hornbeam in July is filled with what is called Infructescences with leafy bracts.

Fall

The American Hornbeam in October

The American Hornbeam Tree in October

This American Hornbeam tree lives at the Botanical Gardens at Asheville.  www.ashevillebotanicalgardens.org

The fruit of the American Hornbeam is in one of these photos.  Some say these fruits look like paper Chinese lanterns.  They look especially like that when the evening sun's light is showing through the lantern-like fruit.

A most interesting place to see this tree:

Hope Plaza at the Washington University school of medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. This excerpt is from a news release about what they are doing:

"The 2.2 acre plaza leading to the building’s entrance is designed to bring Missouri's lush landscape to the urban campus with trees, grasses, and plants native to the St. Louis area and to the state chosen in partnership with the Missouri Botanical Garden. Many of the 40,000 plants placed in the plaza will be species found at the Missouri Botanical Garden's Shaw Nature Preserve in far west St. Louis County.
Trees will include 45 Kentucky Coffee trees, 11 American Hornbeams, willows, redbuds, and swamp white oak trees, surrounded by a meadow-like soft covering of the ground in summer. The plants were chosen to focus on comfort and pleasure in all four seasons.
It will also contain up to 10 raised islands filled with local, knee-high grasses and other shade- or sun-loving plants. Exposed aggregate concrete and decomposed granite will cover walking surfaces and paths through the plaza."
You can read more at:  https://source.wustl.edu  and search for trees.  That campus is doing some amazing work and I have that place on my "to go to" list.

This choice of tree is amazing since it reminds us of strength of our body, minds and spirits.

Another wonderful place to find this tree is in the Great Smoky Mtn. National Park. There are many American Hornbeams in the Smokies.

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished."~ Lao Tzu ~

For the Love of the Trees,
Becky

"Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."
Rachel Carson