Category: flora

Acer saccharinum

Like most maples, silver maple can be variably dioecious (separate male or female trees) or monoecious (male and female flowers on the same tree) but dioecious trees are far more common. They can also change sex from year to year.
Native Americans used the sap of wild trees to make sugar, as medicine, and in bread. They used the wood to make baskets and furniture. An infusion of bark removed from the south side of the tree is used by the Mohegan for cough medicine. The Cherokee take an infusion of the bark for cramps, dysentery, and hives. They boil the inner bark and use it with water as a wash for sore eyes. They also take a compound infusion of the bark for “female trouble” and cramps. They take a hot infusion of the bark for measles, and use the tree to make baskets, for lumber, building material, and for carving.– Wikipedia

VDOT pruning master class

pruned lateral branches
One hears varying things about the Virginia Department of Transportation and trees. I have seen them prune trees with a bush-hog, a rotary mower on a hydraulic arm, whacking limbs off a tree, then moving on. I have heard VDOT credited with creating an acronym for trees, “FHO” (fixed hazardous objects). I have seen them do terminal pruning of trees, cut the trees at ground level that communities have loved and cared for.
Route 20 Monticello Gateway
Recently, I have heard VDOT praise the trees between Charlottesville and Albemarle in the median of Route 20. I like VDOT when they are in praise mode.

sassafras albidum

sassafras flowers
The aromatic smell of sassafras was described by early European settlers arriving in North America. According to one legend, Christopher Columbus found North America because he could smell the scent of sassafras
Sassafras albidum was a well-used plant by Native Americans in what is now the southeastern United States prior to the European colonization. The Choctaw word for sassafras is “Kvfi.” It was known as “Winauk” in Delaware and Virginia and is called “Pauane” by the Timuca.
Some Native American tribes used the leaves of sassafras to treat wounds by rubbing the leaves directly into a wound, and used different parts of the plant for many medicinal purposes such as treating acne, urinary disorders, and sicknesses that increased body temperature, such as high fevers. They also used the bark as a dye, and as a flavoring.–Wikipedia

Gray Coale and Sassafras Albidum at Swan Point