Category: flora

Jason Pierce installs lightening protection in the canopy of an oak in Maplewood Cemetery. Ed Sykes has the story on channel 29.

Westminster Canterbury path, Richmond, Virginia

encountered some 6 y.o. digital files hiding in the seat cushions of my laptop. one of them

Eight years ago a massive white oak next to Brooks Hall blew down, the night hurricane Isabel came to town. UVA is really good about planting trees on central grounds (aka campus). They replanted a sapling near the oak’s site. My question, what is this tree? Looks almost like pictures of American Chestnut (Castanea dentate), a tree that used to dominate the Piedmont, got knocked down hard by blight starting in the early 1900’s.
On the subject of tree genocide, I wonder if UVA has an official program to deal with the Emerald Ash Borer? No doubt. They must. I wonder what percentage of the large trees at UVA are ash trees? The borers’ favorite food.

To live in a place where there is rain, and in a place where the villagers don’t make charcoal out of every available woody plant.

The forked twigs of Witch Hazel are preferred as divining rods. An extract of the plant is used in the astringent witch hazel. The bark and leaves were used by native Americans in the treatment of external inflammations. Pond’s Extract was a popular distillation of the bark in dilute alcohol.–Wikipedia