Melly's Plants

Ginkgo is a large tree that will grow to nicely avoid buildings. A lot of trees (like the ash outside my window that I need to remove) love to just grow into whatever. So, from a landscaping standpoint, this unique tree is a good choice to place in a busier location. We have a few on campus, which are well looked after and most people don't pay them much mind. There's also another, though, in a parking lot in downtown Clemson that I didn't know was there until this afternoon.

This tree is essentially bullet proof. It's okay with rain, heat, bugs, you name it. Not much really happens to it, but it doesn't really like road salt or compaction very much. Who does, though? Walk all over your buddies and see how they like it. Same general idea with the root systems of a lot of plants. They need space in that soil to breathe. Generally, though, considering this tree should be extinct, I think it's faring pretty well.

The yellow leaves are how they look in the fall, which I think is really pretty. Reminds me of bananas as fans.

The veination is neat: it's fanned out as an oddly-palmate type of thing. Each vein is the same width. It's an extremely primitive way of doing things - like liverwort or seaweed. In the scheme of plant development, these came before other, more popular plants, such as angiosperms (flowering ones) and conifers.

Essentially, the plant is outdated, but seems to be doing just fine on campus.

The plant was going to go extinct, but some monks saved it. Asian cuisine loves the nuts, and the leaves are good for helping memory retention - from what I understand. I've also watched a guy eat one, and it didn't seem to be all that tasty, so I think I'll stick with an extract if I feel forgetful.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginko_biloba

There are male and female trees, strictly speaking. A lot of plants will have parts from both sexes, but not these guys. The guys (on the left) have the flowers. The females receive pollen much - at least, how I see it - like pine trees. The 'fruits' are technically cones, considering the seed doesn't form in an ovary. Picky picky little details like that mean that the stinky, fleshy pulp around the seed isn't really fruit.
Call it what you will, there's no way I want to open one. It apparently smells like rancid butter. Ew.

Nerd-fact: This is the only land-plant that has sperm that swim with a flagellum. The female has her ovary on the surface, and in wet climates (think ferns) this was an especially convenient way to propagate seed. Generally, though, angiosperms took over (conifers like to just puff out as much of their mess as possible and hope it lands on a girl part somewhere else, which is why I hate them) because, partially, of their great reproductive method. Again, this plant is pretty well out-dated.

There's the fruit! People love that stuff (the seed, not the..'fruit'.)

I think this photo is GORGEOUS. Look at that fall color! It is a big tree, so I wouldn't put it on a 1/4 acre lot (I'm still unsure why it's in a parking lot downtown; who decided on that? Really?) but if there IS one around it looks brilliant! The course I'm taking is 'Growing Fall Plants', hence the fall-color emphasis I've been using lately.

The plant has good, strong wood, and a decent - not fast - growth rate. It takes horrible soils (just doesn't like a lot of road-salt and people walking on it). It's pretty easy to get along with. It would be hard to say if it's native, considering it's.. well, it's an oddity as far as survival goes. It lives because people wanted it to, pretty much; I doubt it'd be around if the Chinese weren't so appreciative of ginkgo seeds.

This is the bark. I think it's much prettier than the Acer saccharum was (it was gray-brown and whatnot). The plant, generally, just looks happier and less gloomy than some of the others we've looked at.

http://www.quick-growing-trees.com/product_images/h/635/sn_maple_tree__56135_zoom.jpg

Sugar Maple

This is another tree from campus that I enjoyed over the fall. Between this and the red maple, I really felt like I wasn't down South anymore; the famed changing of the leaves up north (which is banked on pretty heavily, and people do plant just because of tourism) happens down here a little bit, as seen with trees like this one.

Quick fact: this is the Canadian flag tree leaf. Neat, huh?

As one can see, it's a little more rounded and dense than the other maples I've put up so far. It's a pretty symmetrical type of tree, generally with five similarly-sized major lobes, and they're all palmate: each lobe and vein originate from a central point at the base of the leaf.

Again, remember how the leaves will alternate.

I think these are a little pointier than the Silver Maple's leaves were. I think the tips of leaves help me out really well in remembering what they are. Everyone's going to have their own identification reason - be it the flag, or the color, or the thickness of the leaf, or the obvious palmation - but this one is pretty distinctive.

If I remember correctly, the leaf is a bit bigger than the red maple (Acer rubrum) and a lot shallower with the lobe dissection than the Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum; oh yeah, I rock.)

I stuck in some color variation for fun. I thought it was pretty. I love leaves when they change. I must have played with them too much as a kid, or something.

It's got great fall color and would definitely light up a landscape for the season. It's not exactly ugly with spring leaves, either. I rather like the shape, myself.

That's right! It's the syrup tree. However, they kind of need snowy-temperatures to really get the sap going.

How it works is the plant needs a cold season to do its thing. The heat really wears it out, meaning that it uses up more of its stored energy to deal with things than it would further up north. The tree's limit really is around South Carolina (and it doesn't exactly look thrilled to be here in the first place).

These are smaller winged samaras than some of the others, and less rounded in appearance than the silver maple (Acer saccharinum). There also doesn't seem to be as much call for coloration in the seed, although I could be wrong about that. The red maple (Acer rubrum) seemed to have quite a lot more than this picture here has, but, as I've said before, maples seem to like to do whatever they want.

Again, I've pulled up a bark photo. It's a little darker than some of the others, and also grooved. It generally has smooth, gray bark which has giant pieces peel off - but that's more common further north than it is down here.

The tree is pretty gorgeous, and useful in colder states, but doesn't like it down south or in the heat very much. It also isn't great in parking lots - doesn't like road salt or compaction at all. Generally speaking, it's what I'd call a farm-tree: keep it somewhere where people and cars won't really be interfering with it and it should be fine. I always picture goats walking around it, using it for cover in the rain, or something.

Silver Maple

Acer saccharinum, not to be confused with A. saccharum, which is a sugar maple (syrup, anyone?), I think this tree's most notable characteristic is it's silver-underside leaf.

The lobes are a little more defined, I think, than the generally-three lobed, balanced shape of the red maple (Acer rubrum; I'm trying to memorize this sort of thing.)

The angles in the leaf are more defined, but not necessarily pointy (I've seen pointier leaves in other maples so far).
The sinus (veins) are deep, easily noticeable.

http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000K9jr167PcHQ/s/750/750/tree-trunk-826.jpg

It's a little hard to tell, but if you really look at it you can see the alternation of the leaves. They don't bunch up, but hang out in pairs.

The tree grows quickly, and generally has brittle wood. That means it tends to lose limbs. People like the way it looks - and appreciates the speed of its growth - which is why it's used often enough. The roots like to seek out water sources, though, making it similar to the willow with how it wants to get into water lines and such.

The limbs 'split' early in growth, meaning that there's a little base at the bottom where a couple-few large limbs will branch out at an angle. This puts stress on the tree. Strong angles and weak wood generally mean that when the tree's limbs get heavy, or if a storm comes by and stresses it enough, it'll drop those limbs - and the ones I've seen weren't small. Pruning early can theoretically prevent this, but most people wouldn't do that.

*Note: I'm not exactly adept in this yet, so this MIGHT not be a silver maple. The internet says it is. I'd like to say I'm using the trunk as an example of what I'm about to talk about, not necessarily to prove what the bark looks like.

This trunk has some obvious splitting points. It's not quite as much of an extreme angle as it could be, so it may live longer before dropping a limb, but it's bound to happen.

The one I saw on campus had a split of three trunks from the base, and there's almost a line in the bark where one can tell where the stress will split the wood. It's still a nice tree, and provides good shade, so I personally think it was a nice choice. I just hope people understood that the tree won't look exactly like that for hundreds of years.

The samaras are a little more squat and bolder in color, from the looks of things, than reds - but, so far I've learned to be careful with trying to depend on consistencies so desperately. They do seem more rounded, though, and in general it appears to be pretty easy to tell the samaras apart from the red maple's.

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/forestry/commontr/images/SilverMaple.gif

The bark is grooved but not as extremely much as I saw with the red. It seems to be a little more delicate, and it is, in a sense. The wood grows pretty quickly. The tree loves water, and I can understand why: it grows well in the midwest (one of few, it seems, that doesn't mind growing there) and I'm sure water is a different matter altogether than it is here, as far as acquisition is concerned.

I actually rather liked this diagram for the general perspective of trying to understand how this one differs from the others. People can tell trees apart by just the growth of a stem, and that fascinates me. Looks like a stick to me, at the moment, with some little buds and such.

Red Maple

Red maples aren't usually red. Go figure. So, get that out of your head now while you can. I know, I was annoyed, too. What gives? Is it the petiole (the little stem coming straight from the leaf onto the branch)? Not really. Underside of the leaf? Not really. Bark? Nope. Running out of options, right?

Acer rubrum is actually really pretty. We have one on campus in a little courtyard type of spot right beside the parking lot to the library, and I remember being on campus last year and yoinking a shot of it from my camera.

This is what the tree looks like in the fall, if it's doing what it's supposed to and losing it's pigment.

I like to think of it as having nice, delicate branches from a good trunk; the canopy seems pretty rounded and overall it has a good, shading shape. The shape does vary, though, and it can be taller or less dense depending on the type (and maples like to hybridize like naughty little buggers, so it's possible to see something like this and it isn't exactly a rubrum.)

The roots are shallow, though, meaning it'll be hard to plant much of anything underneath it. Considering it also tends to be pretty shady, in a manner of speaking, not much will like being there anyway. I'd justify adding some birdhouses or feeders to hang from it, myself. So, it needs a little space, but it does lighten up the scenery very well in the fall. I remember it turning at around October last year, which really gave everything a nice autumn/Halloween type of feel. It is definitely a better choice than 'paper-bag brown' as Dr. Adelberg likes to put it.

The bark is furrowed and a nice uniform brown. Although it doesn't really have much of a pattern, like that pine I never remembered the name of, it is definitely different than the willow I posted about earlier.

Also, the flowers on the tree are red and like to bloom around February, giving things a little bit of color before spring life floats up too much.

The seeds, Samaras, come in clusters like this. They generally seem to come paired and will helicopter down (we've all chased them as kids, don't lie about it). The tinges, I'm sure, can be different depending on the tree, but what I can observe is that they're pretty uniform in shape, size and color.

The leaves themselves are pretty evenly shaped, generally with three lobes.
If one knows anything about trees, telling maples apart from everything else is pretty simple: the leaves are always opposite in maples. Willows, and so forth, tend to alternate. If you look at a cluster, one can see the leaves of maples grow across from each other, rather than taking turns down the stem.

http://img.ehowcdn.com/article-new/ehow/images/a06/3a/7c/prune-red-maple-tree-800x800.jpg

The deepness of the veins can vary, and the deepness of the dissection between lobes can vary. Generally, though, it seems to sport squat, even lobes, making it appear pretty uniform (not really any more squat than wide, etc).

As far as soils and temperature, it can vary. It seems to tolerate different soils, and definitely different temperatures, to a point. It'll grow along roads, and probably takes salt relatively well - it does grow up north as well as here in SC.

I like them better by themselves. As far as design, I found I really like the one at the library. Why? It's one of two, that I really remember, that lit everything else up with a fiery red color. The other trees were still thinking about changing color, or had lost their leaves completely, meaning this one took center stage. Being around some deep evergreens would also be nice: I love strong contrasts like that, and so keeping this around some firs or deep pines would be picturesque in my opinion. Putting a lot of things around it, though, I believe would detract from the overall beauty: it's pretty on its own and seems to want its own space.

Considering that, I do have to say that these trees wouldn't be good as roadside growth: they aren't uniform enough in shape from plant-to-plant to make it look presentable in a row. I can understand having a road full of fiery reds (mix in some gold-fall color and it would be fantastic) would be nice, but as far as year-round uniformity, it's missing an element physically. Personally, if that were an interest, I'd make it one of few and put other, more uniform plants near it.

Babylon Weeping Willow

Otherwise known as the Peking Willow (Salix babylonica), this is the tree that a lot of people think of appearing near lakes or at graveyards.

Obviously, in the correct landscape (which is the point of the class I'm doing this blog for, at the moment) this tree is actually really gorgeous. Weeping branches are very easily identifiable: 5th graders know what this tree is and I remember thinking they were the coolest looking things ever. I grew up around a lot of pine, and these soft, flowy trees were a very light, gentle contrast to such a hard, enduring type of plant.
These are pretty good at softening hard corners, or otherwise adding some grace or a feeling of gentleness to the landscape. It's good for shade, and I remember being a kid and watching a friend's parents make out underneath one - so there is some romantic appeal to it, I suppose. People seem to feel comfortable around these trees.

I've never really studied the flowers, and my initial thought is that they look like the best reason to sneeze ever. We won't be dealing with the flowers much this semester, I expect: I don't remember seeing willows flower in the fall, but I could be wrong. That's happened before (rarely. Ha.)

This flowy plant likes water. From how things sound, I wouldn't end up making this an urbanite type of tree. It needs space for multiple reasons. For one, it likes to seek out water. Remember how I said people tend to remember seeing it near ponds? It prefers seeking out water with its roots with some efficiency. This tree shouldn't be put near gutters or other water-collection (pipes, sewer, wells, septic tanks and lines) that you'd like to keep intact. If you have a big old lake, then obviously this tree will be perfectly happy - given it has enough space to grow. This pond idea has a perk, which I'll get into next.

This is a close-up of some bark! Look at it! Bark!
The native Americans chewed on the bark for a numbing effect. Salicaeae - the unsynthesized source of Aspirin - is a natural wildlife repellent. To humans it's not so bad (convenient sometimes), but I'm sure it's a deterrent to small woodland bugs.