flora – Page 4 – Black and White

Maclura pomifera

National Arboretum DC — It is a member of the mulberry family, Moraceae. Due to its latex secretions and woody pulp, the fruit is typically not eaten by humans and rarely by foraging animals. Controversial suggestions have been made that it was consumed by extinct Pleistocene megafauna, but these claims have been criticised as lacking empirical evidence.
Maclura pomifera has many names, including mock orange, hedge apple, hedge, horse apple, monkey ball, monkey brains and yellow-wood. The name bois d’arc (from French meaning “bow-wood”) has also been corrupted into bodark and bodock..– Wikipedia

We used to call them brain trees.
Horse high, bull strong, hog tight…

root plate

big tree blown horizontal — Blowing down a big tree, the force required to break the grip of a root plate is immense. A tall tree’s stem is a huge lever with branches that offer commodious sail area. Come a powerful wind, the tree is laid down. In time, we all fall down.

Europeans and their plants

smith lane gauntlet — English ivy, english privet, tree of heaven, japanese honeysuckle. Native plants displaced.

military woods — This is an artificial landscape, triangular planting of trees, 99% resident in the Tidewater. Waiting for the canopy to close then will work on understory…

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

Military Woods

trees in formation — Triangular planting pattern

falling

q alba falls into water — There is always a larger older tree elsewhere. Who mourns this stately individual’s fall? The local squirrels and jays mourn. Very sad.

white rabbit

Twillip-the-rabbit — A view, a vase with cuttings. Beauty, morning, the mind relaxes.

it’s as clear as

delighted with higher CO2 levels thankyou!

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.

Gall

q alba leaves — My favorite oak tree has galls on some of the leaves. This the topside

oak leaves — this the underside. Hoping the hive mind can tell me the culprit. Prognosis?