Comings and goings

I went for a walk on the berm last Thursday and found a new tree seedling I hadn't noticed before. It superficially looks like a small sumac but I believe, after consulting my tree ID book, that this is actually a Black Walnut sapling. Where the nut came from is a bit of a mystery as the closest walnut tree I know of is at the corner of Cox and Majestic. I did recently find a new walnut nut in the long grass of the 2009 planting area so they get there one way or another. Perhaps a squirrel relay team was involved. I acted the squirrel and properly buried the nut I found.

The heart shape leaf scar and fuzzy bud in the above picture along with the long pinnately compound leaves lead me to identify this as a black walnut however when I compared the leaflet to a leaflet from the black walnut on Majestic the sapling's leaflet is significantly larger.

Coming back along the berm I noticed one of the large cottonwood poplars planted on the top of the berm in 1995 has recently fallen down. It is quite an impressively large tree for just 22 years of growth. It was 85 feet high. Its trunk lies completely across the width of the 1995 planting area with the canopy lying in the 2009 planting area. Its fall took out a couple of understory trees in the 1995 area but most of the damage in the 2009 area is on the sumac which will recover.

The Eastern Cottonwoods

The tallest trees of the 1995 plantings are the Eastern Cottonwoods. They are now about 75 feet tall whereas the rest of the forest canopy looks to be about 40 feet high. They grow quickly and the 20 year old trees already have substantial trunks. They are, however, very short lived trees; some of them have already toppled over. The cottonwoods take their name from the fluff their seed pods produce (see above). The ground beneath the female trees can be covered in the stuff in late June.

The cottonwoods sucker but their suckers are not particularly successful, dying back either in winter or in summer droughts. Only one sucker, pictured above, in the 2009 planting area has survived for more than 3 years. When the suckers do grow, they grow very quickly and can reach over 6 feet in a single season. The large shiny triangular leaves, pictured below, are quite distinctly different from the other suckering poplar species on the berm: the smaller rounded leaves of the aspen suckers (see last picture). As can be seen in the picture, that aspen sapling is suffering from poplar leaf aphids.