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