Sourwood - Oxydendrun arboreum

Ericaceae - Heath Family
"A Year With the Trees" - Tree Number 26
Sourwood
Oxydendrum arboreum

Spring 

The Spring Sourwood Tree.  Image by Robert Priddy.
http://www.robertpriddyphoto.com/

Summer

Sourwood Tree in Summer

The beautiful white flowers on the sourwood tree are bell shaped and all in a row.  As I took this photo today, the bees were busy collecting nectar to make their sourwood honey.  Some of the leaves are even starting the color change to red.  This tree is the first to change colors.  In the photo you can see how the red in peeking through.

Sourwood summer leaves

Fall

Sourwood Tree in the Fall

October and the Sourwood tree; it does not get much prettier.   These trees are the ones with the burnt-red colored leaves and the gently-bending grooved-barked trunks.

Winter

The Sourwood Tree

This tree is also called Lily of the Valley or Sorrel Tree. It can grow to 60 feet tall. The bark is so distinctive in the winter. The young green leaves in the spring are beautiful. Just you wait till you know the beauty of this tree in the summer and fall, oh my goodness. This is a native tree of America. The leaves taste sour, thus the name. Tea is made from the leaves to quench thirst, and honey made from the flowers is a gift from heaven above.

Evening light on the Sourwood Tree

The Distinctive deeply grooved Bark makes the sourwood tree stand out in the winter. The way the sourwood tree leans is another way to identify the sourwood tree in the winter. A teacher once told me that this is the artist's tree, as it always leans to the left. (just watch which side you are standing on)

For the love of the trees,
Becky