Tag Alder - Alnus serrulata

Betulaceae - Birch Family

A Year With the Trees tree No. 12

Tag Alder

Alnus serrulata

Where to find:
 At the Botanical Gardens of Asheville, North Carolina http://ashevillebotanicalgardens.org
and the Fletcher Park in Fletcher, North Carolina. 

This tree is one of the members of the family, Betulaceae that is native to the United States and the Southeast. 

Winter:

buds and twigs, bark, fruit

Tag Alder, Alnus serrulata, The Botanical Gardens of Asheville

This Tag Alder lives by the creek at the Botanical Gardens.  The light was beautiful this morning as I walked by the beautiful trees.  I always see these trees as being graceful and dancing as they sway in the wind and the light.  One can sit near here at the creek and I encourage everyone to do so.  Just take a moment and sit on a sunny day on the creek and just watch as the trees sway and bend and seem to dance in the light.

The Alder - Photo by Robert Priddy. www.robertpriddyphoto.com

This is one of the first trees to bloom in the spring. Sometimes blooming as early as January. 

Spring:

leaves, flowers, fruit

The Betulaceae Family of the Southern Appalachians:

Tag Alder

Yellow Birch

Black Birch

River Birch

Paper Birch

American Hornbeam

Eastern Hophornbeam

When I see a tree in this family, I see the  male flowers called catkins and female flowers that are like little pine cones.  The female and male flowers both grow on the same tree before or at the same time that the leaves appear.   

I see toothed, alternate, simple leaves.  The leaves are usually in the shape called ovate or obovate.   The leaves are deciduous and turn yellow in the fall before falling to the ground.

The fruit in this family is a single seeded nutlet.

This Alder tree is a national champion alder tree.
I read that Asheville was the home of the champion Alder in the book, Trees of the Smokies. So, my daughter and I drove to the river where we knew it was suppose to be, and we walked by the side of the river till we found it. It is so beautiful. She took my photo as I stood inside the tree's circle of trees.

The leaves are obovate shaped and 3-5 inches long. The leaves are finely saw toothed and dull green. This tree is usually found by streams and banks of rivers.

Summer:
leaves, fruit

http://www.flickr.com/photos/claytonsnatives/3754927053/lightbox/#/photos/claytonsnatives/3754927053/

The Tag Alder tree is called also the Hazel Alder.  The Tag Alder tree actually improves the fertility of the soil in which this tree grows by providing additional nitrogen by a process called nitrogen fixation.

This tree is the host plant to four moth species.  This is the caterpillar of the Iron Prominent moth (Notodonta dromedarius).  It was photographed after it fell from an Alder tree.

Derek Parkinson [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Fall

leaves, fruit

The Tag Alder - Alnus serrulata.  Photo by Robert Priddy

This tree lives along streams and wet areas at 3,000 feet elevation or less.  The fruit looks like tiny pine cones and they stay on the tree most of the year.  

For the love of the trees, Becky