Indigenous trees | New England

Culture

Best grown in moist, acidic, well-drained soils in full sun. As the common name suggests, this is a tree of cool mountain climates that dislikes hot and humid summers, and will not grow well south.

Noteworthy Characteristics

Native to Europe and Asia, European mountain ash has been widely planted in northern North America as an ornamental and has naturalized in some parts of Canada and the northern U.S. It is primarily cultivated for its compound green leaves and attractive clusters of fall fruit. It is a small, deciduous tree that grows to 20-40’ tall with a narrow, upright-oval crown, usually rounding and opening with age. Compound, odd-pinnate, flat medium green leaves have 9-15 serrate, oblong-lanceolate leaflets (each leaflet to 2.5” long). Leaves turn yellow to reddish-purple in fall. Small, white, 5-petaled flowers (1/3” across) bloom in flattened corymbs in May. Flowers give way to pendant clusters of orange-red berry-like drupes in late summer. Cultivars are available in commerce featuring pink, yellow and bright red fruits. Mountain ashes have ash-like leaves, but are members of the rose family, and are not related to true ashes (Fraxinus of the olive family).

Problems

Bacterial fireblight can be a severe problem, causing scorched leaves at the branch ends. Scab can cause significant defoliation. Cankers, crown gall, powdery mildew and rust may also occur. Insect visitors include aphids, sawfly, scale and borers. Stressed trees are particularly vulnerable to borers and cankers.

Garden Uses

Lawn specimen or small shade tree for cool northern climates. May also be an effective street tree in areas where road salt is infrequently applied in winter

Acer sieboldianum (Siebold's Maple is a specie of maple native to Japan and common in the forests of Hokkaidō, Honshū, Shikoku and Kyūshū Islands; in the south of the range it is restricted to mountain forests.
It is a slow-growing, small to medium-sized deciduous tree growing to 10–15 metres (33–49 ft) tall in is natural habitat, with smooth grey-brown bark. The young shoots are green to red, thinly covered with white hairs in their first year. The leaves are mid to dark green, 4–8 centimetres (1.6–3.1 in) long and 5–10 centimetres (2.0–3.9 in) broad with a 3–7 centimetres (1.2–2.8 in) petiole, and palmately lobed with nine to eleven (occasionally just seven) lobes. The young leaves in spring are downy with white hairs, with the petiole and veins on the underside of the leaf remaining hairy all summer, a feature useful in distinguishing it from the related Acer palmatum. In autumn, the leaves turn bright orange to red. Siebold's Maple is not as rare in cultivation as it seems.

Specimens are often mistaken for and mislabeled as similar species in the series Palmata, such as Acer japonicum, Acer shirasawanum and Acer palmatum; it is also sometimes confused with Acer pseudosieboldianum (Korean Maple or Keijo Maple), a closely related species from the adjacent mainland of northeastern Asia.

Tilia americana is a specie of Tilia native to eastern North America. Tilia americana is a medium-sized to large deciduous tree reaching a height of 18 to 37 m (60 to 120 ft) exceptionally 39 m (129 ft) with a trunk diameter of 1-1.5 m (3–4 ft) at maturity. The crown is domed, the branches spreading, often pendulous. The bark is gray to light brown, with narrow, well defined fissures. The specie is recommended as an ornamental tree when the mass of foliage or a deep shade is desired; no native tree surpasses it in this respect. The foliage and flowers are both edible, though many prefer only to eat the tender young leaves. It is a beneficial specie for attracting pollinators as well. Bees produce excellent honey with a mildly spicy flavor from its blossoms. Linden tea has a pleasing taste, due to the aromatic volatile oil found in the flowers.

Fagus grandifolia (American beech or North American beech) is the species of beech tree native to the eastern United States and Canada from Nova Scotia west to southern Ontario in southeastern Canada, west to Wisconsin and south to eastern Texas and northern Florida in the United States. F. grandifolia is believed to have spanned the width of the North American continent all the way to the Pacific coast before the last ice age.

It is a deciduous tree growing to 20–35 m (66–115 ft) tall, with smooth, silver-gray bark. The leaves are dark green, simple and sparsely-toothed with small teeth that terminate each vein, 6–12 cm (2.4–4.7 in) long (rarely 15 centimetres (5.9 in)), with a short petiole. The winter twigs are distinctive among North American trees, being long and slender. Beech buds are distinctly thin and long, resembling cigars; this characteristic makes beech trees relatively easy to identify. The fruit is a small, sharply-angled nut, borne in pairs in a soft-spined, four-lobed husk. It has two ways of reproducing: one is through the usual dispersal of seedlings, and the other is through root sprouts. This is where the tree will have smaller trees growing out of its roots in different locations.

The American beech is a shade-tolerant species, favoring shade more than other trees, commonly found in forests in the final stage of succession. Ecological succession is essentially the process of forests changing their composition through time; it is a pattern of events often observed on disturbed sites. Although sometimes found in pure stands, it is more often associated with sugar maple (forming the beech-maple climax community), yellow birch, and Eastern hemlock, typically on moist well drained slopes and rich bottomlands. Near its southern limit, it often shares canopy dominance with Southern Magnolia. Although it has a reputation for slow growth (sometimes only 13 feet in 20 years), rich soil and ample moisture will greatly speed the process up. Much like sugar maple, American beech is picky about growing conditions, favoring a well-watered, but also well-drained spot and is intolerant of urban pollution, salt, and soil compaction. It also casts dense shade and has an extensive network of shallow, fibrous surface roots that make gardening underneath it almost impossible. Because American beech needs plenty of moisture and rich soil to thrive, it naturally occurs in bottomland forests. Early settlers often looked for beeches as a sign of a good potential place to clear the forest for farming.

Disease

Beech bark disease has become a major killer of beech trees in the Northeastern United States. This disease occurs when the beech scale insect, Cryptococcus fagisuga, attacks the bark, creating a wound that is then infected by one of two different species of fungi in the genus Nectria. This causes a canker to develop and the tree is eventually killed.

Beech blight aphids colonize branches of the tree, but without serious harm to otherwise healthy trees. Below these colonies, deposits of sooty mold develop caused by the fungus Scorias spongiosa growing saprophytically on the honeydew the insects exude. This is also harmless to the trees.

American beech is an important tree in forestry. The wood is heavy, hard, tough and strong, and until the advent of power tools in the 20th century, lumbering beech trees were often left uncut to grow. As a result, many areas today still have extensive groves of old beeches that would not otherwise occur. Today, the wood is harvested for uses such as flooring, containers, furniture, handles and woodenware.

Like European beech bark, the American beech bark is smooth and uniform, making it an attraction for vandals to carve names, dates, gang symbols, and other material into its surface. It is sometimes planted as an ornamental tree, but even within its native area, it is planted much less often than the European beech. Although American beech can handle hotter climates, its European variant is faster-growing and more pollution-tolerant, in addition to being easier to propagate. American beech can take up to 40 years to begin producing seeds. Large crops are produced by 60 years and the tree's total lifespan may be up to 300 years. The fruit is a triangle-shaped shell containing 2-3 nuts inside, but many of them do not fill in, especially on solitary trees. Beech nuts are edible to humans, although too small to be commercially valuable.

The mast (crop of nuts) from American beech provides food for numerous species of animals. Among vertebrates alone, these include ruffed grouse, wild turkeys, raccoons, red/gray foxes, white-tailed deer, rabbits, squirrels, opossums, pheasants, black bears, porcupines, and humans. For lepidopteran caterpillars feeding on American beech, see list of Lepidoptera that feed on beeches. Beech nuts were one of the primary foods of the now-extinct passenger pigeon; the clearing of beech and oak forests are pointed to as one of the major factors that may have contributed to the bird's extinction.

source: Wikipedia

Viburnum trilobum (American cranberrybush viburnum), American cranberrybush is a specie of Viburnum native to northern North America, from Newfoundland west to British Columbia, south to Washington state and east to northern Virginia. It is very closely related to the European and Asian Viburnum opulus, and is often treated as a variety of it. This shrud is hardy to zone 2b.

It is a deciduous shrub growing to 4 m tall. The bark is gray and rough and has a scaly texture. The stems arch and are very dense, and the twigs are a reddish-brown color. The leaves are opposite, three-lobed, 6-12 cm long and 5-10 cm broad, with a rounded base and serrated margins; they are superficially similar to many maple leaves, most easily distinguished by their somewhat wrinkled surface with impressed leaf venation. The leaf buds are green. The bud scales are valvate. The flowers are white, produced in corymbs up to 13 cm diameter at the top of the stems; each corymb comprises a ring of outer sterile flowers 2-2.5 cm diameter with conspicuous petals, surrounding a center of small (5 mm), fertile flowers; the flowers are pollinated by insects. The fruit is an oblong red drupe 15 mm long and 12 mm broad, containing a single flat, white seed. Plants begin to produce fruits at approximately five years of age; when animals, including birds, eat the fruits, they deposit the seeds in another location in their droppings.

Although often called "highbush cranberry", it is not a cranberry. The name comes from the red fruits which look superficially like cranberries, and have a similar flavor and ripen at the same time of year. The fruits, sour and rich in vitamin C, can be eaten raw or cooked into a sauce to serve with meat or game. This is a commonly used berry in Western Canadian cultures. People of various origins both Native and European have used the berries for many years. The Canadian French name for the berries is pembina.

The American hophornbeam, is a species of Ostrya native to eastern North America, from Nova Scotia west to southern Manitoba and eastern Wyoming, southeast to northern Florida and southwest to eastern Texas. Populations from Mexico and Central America are also regarded as the same species, although some authors prefer to separate them as a distinct species, Ostrya guatemalensis.

American hophornbeam is a small deciduous understory tree growing to 18 m (59 ft) tall and 20–50 centimetres (8–20 in) trunk diameter. The bark is brown to gray-brown, with narrow shaggy plates flaking off, while younger twigs and branches are smoother and gray, with small lenticels. The life span of ostrya is around 100 years.

The leaves are ovoid-acute, 5–13 cm (2–5 in) long and 4–6 cm (1 1⁄2–2 1⁄4 in) broad, pinnately veined, with an doubly serrated margin. The upper surface is mostly hairless, while the lower surface is sparsely to moderately fuzzy (rarely densely hairy).The flowers are catkins (spikes) produced in early spring at the same time as the new leaves appear. The staminate (male) catkins are 20–50 mm (3⁄4–2 in) long, and arranged in groups of 1–4.The pistillate (female) catkins are 8–15 mm (5⁄16–19⁄32 in) long, containing 10–30 flowers each.

Pollinated female flowers develop into small nutlets 3–5 mm (1⁄8–3⁄16 in) long fully enclosed in a papery sac-shaped involucre 10–18 mm (3⁄8–11⁄16 in) long and 8–10 mm (5⁄16–3⁄8 in) wide.The involucre changes from greenish-white to dull brown as the fruit matures.

American hophornbeam is similar to its close relative American hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana), which can be distinguished by its smooth bark and nutlets enclosed in open, three-lobed bracts.

The buds and catkins are important source of winter food for some birds, notably ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus). It is grown as an ornamental plant and is sometimes used as a street tree. Its wood is very resilient and is valued for making tool handles and fence posts. Being a diffuse porous hardwood and having extremely high density and resistance to compression, it is an excellent material for the construction of wooden longbows. Easily hardy to zone 3b.

Carpinus caroliniana (American hornbeam) is a small hardwood tree in the genus Carpinus. It is a small tree reaching heights of 10–15 m, rarely 20 m, and often has a fluted and crooked trunk. The bark is smooth and greenish-grey, becoming shallowly fissured in all old trees. The leaves are alternate, 3–12 cm long, with prominent veins giving a distinctive corrugated texture, and a serrated margin. The fruit is a small 7–8 mm long nut, partially surrounded by a three- to seven-pointed leafy involucre 2–3 cm long; it matures in autumn. It is a shade-loving tree, which prefers moderate soil fertility and moisture. It has a shallow, wide-spreading root system. The seeds often do not germinate till the spring of the second year after maturating. Wood: light brown, sapwood nearly white; heavy, hard, close-grained, very strong. Used for levers, handles of tools. Excellent tree for backyards and narrow space where there is low sunshine.

The tree specie Sorbus americana is commonly known as the American Mountain-ash. It is a deciduous perennial tree, native to eastern North America. Sorbus americana is a relatively small tree, reaching 40 feet (12 m) in height. Fruit: berry-like pome, globular, one-quarter of an inch across, bright red, borne in cymous clusters. Ripens in October and remains on the tree all winter. Flesh thin and sour, charged with malic acid; seeds light brown, oblong, compressed; cotyledons fleshy. Sorbus americana is cultivated as an ornamental tree, for use in gardens and parks. It prefers a rich moist soil and the borders of swamps, but will flourish on rocky hillsides. This is an excellent ornamental tree for small space in landscaping. Suitable for zone 2b.

Acer ginnala (Amur maple) is a plant species with woody stems native to northeastern Asia from easternmost Mongolia east to Korea and Japan, and north to the Russian Far East in the Amur River valley. It is a small maple with deciduous leaves that is sometimes grown as a garden subject or boulevard tree.

Acer ginnala is a deciduous spreading shrub or small tree growing to 3–10 m tall, with a short trunk up to 20–40 cm diameter and slender branches. The bark is thin, dull gray-brown, and smooth at first but becoming shallowly fissured on old plants. The leaves are opposite and simple, 4–10 cm long and 3-6 wide, deeply palmately lobed with three or five lobes, of which two small basal lobes (sometimes absent) and three larger apical lobes; the lobes are coarsely and irregularly toothed, and the upper leaf surface glossy. The leaves turn brilliant orange to red in autumn, and are on slender, often pink-tinged, petioles 3–5 cm long. The flowers are yellow-green, 5–8 mm diameter, produced in spreading panicles in spring as the leaves open. The fruit is a paired reddish samara, 8–10 mm long with a 1.5–2 cm wing, maturing in late summer to early autumn.

Amur maple is closely related to Acer tataricum (Tatar maple), and some botanists treat it as a subspecies A. tataricum subsp. ginnala (Maxim.) Wesm. The glossy, deeply lobed leaves of A. ginnala distinguish it from A. tataricum, which has matte, unlobed or only shallowly lobed leaves. Acer ginnala is grown as an ornamental plant in northern regions of Europe and North America. It is the most cold-tolerant maple, hardy to zone 2. It is naturalised in parts of North America. Planted on exceptional sites facing south west with consistent moisture and light loamy soils, this tree can grow 3 to 4 feet per year making it a fast grower. It is often planted as a shrub along borders.

The arrowwood viburnum is native from New Brunswick to Minnesota, south to Georgia. The name arrowwood comes from Native Americans using the strong shoots which developed from the roots for the shafts of their arrows. The arrowwood viburnum can be expected to grow in Hardiness Zones 3–8. This is a flowering shrub, typically planted for its profusion of flowers. The arrowwood viburnum grows to a height of 6–15', with an equal spread, at maturity. This shrub grows at a medium rate, with height increases of 13–24" per year.

The full sun and partial shade are best for this shrub, meaning it prefers a minimum of 4 hours of direct, unfiltered sunlight each day. The arrowwood viburnum grows in acidic, alkaline, loamy, moist, rich, sandy, silty loam, well-drained and clay soils. This shrub produces creamy white flowers in flat-topped clusters that are 2–4" in diameter and bloom from May to early June.

Yields ½" blue-black drupes that appear after the flowers and ripen in the early fall. Features lustrous dark green leaves with coarsely toothed margins that provide lovely fall color, turning yellow, glossy red or reddish-purple.
Grows in an irregular, rounded shape. It forms dense thickets and provides excellent cover and nesting sites. Birds consume the abundant fruits. It attracts Red Admiral, Eastern Comma and Question Mark butterflies and is larval plant food for the spring azure butterfly and hummingbird moth. This shrub adds plenty of seasonal interest to any landscape. Creamy white flowers appear in late spring, bundled into lovely flat-topped clusters. Blue-black berry-like drupes follow the flowers in the summertime, ripening completely in early fall. And as fall marches on, the lustrous dark green leaves take on lovely fall shades of yellow, glossy red or reddish-purple.

This 10-22 m tall tree has flattened needles on both sides of the branch. They are 3 to 4 cm long, hard to roll between thumb and forefinger, and have two white lines on their underside. Young fir trees have smooth, grayish bark dotted with prominent resin vesicles. The bark becomes cracked and brownish in older trees.

It thrives in almost any habitat, but prefers moist, cool and moderately drained sites. Balsam fir is the most northerly of all the world's firs.

Often used as a Christmas tree.

Robinia pseudoacacia, commonly known as the black locust, is a tree of the genus Robinia of the pea family Fabaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States, but has been widely planted and naturalized elsewhere in temperate North America, Europe, Southern Africa and Asia and is considered an invasive specie in some areas. With a trunk up to 0.8 m diameter (exceptionally up to 52 m tall and 1.6 m diameter in very old trees), with thick, deeply furrowed blackish bark. The leaves are 10–25 cm long, pinnate with 9–19 oval leaflets, 2–5 cm long and 1.5–3 cm broad. Each leaf usually has a pair of short spines at the base, 1–2 mm long or absent on adult crown shoots, up to 2 cm long on vigorous young plants. The intensely fragrant (reminiscent of orange blossoms) flowers are white to lavender or purple, borne in pendulous racemes 8–20 cm long, and are edible. Wood: pale yellowish brown; heavy, hard, strong, close-grained and very durable in contact with the ground. The wood has a specific gravity 0.7333, and a weight of approximately 45.7 pounds per cubic foot.

Black locust is a major honey plant in the eastern US, and, having been taken and planted in France, Italy and other European nations. Black locust has nitrogen-fixing bacteria on its root system; for this reason it can grow on poor soils and is an early colonizer of disturbed areas. This is an excellent tree to add in a permaculture system as well as shelterbed and for ornamental in parks and streets. Suitable for zone 4b.

It is a very slow growing tree, hardiness zone 4a. The eastern hemlock is a hardy species, native to Quebec. It is not recommended to put them in heavy soils and windy places. It is not recommended to put them in heavy soils and windy areas, but rather in soils with an acidic pH that are both moist and well drained.

Larix laricina, commonly known as the tamarack, eastern larch, black larch, red larch or American larch, is a species of larch native to Canada, from eastern Yukon and Inuvik, Northwest Territories east to Newfoundland, and also south into the northeastern United States from Minnesota to Cranesville Swamp, Maryland; there is also an isolated population in central Alaska. The word tamarack is the Algonquian name for the species and means "wood used for snowshoes." Larix laricina is a small to medium-size boreal coniferous and deciduous tree reaching 10–20 metres (33–66 ft) tall, with a trunk up to 60 centimetres (24 in) diameter. Tamaracks and Larches (Larix species) are deciduous conifers. The bark is tight and flaky, pink, but under flaking bark it can appear reddish. The leaves are needle-like, 2–3 cm (0.8–1.2 in) short, light blue-green, turning bright yellow before they fall in the autumn, leaving the pale pinkish-brown shoots bare until the next spring. The needles are produced spirally on long shoots and in dense clusters on long woody spur shoots. The cones are the smallest of any larch, only 1–2.3 cm (0.4–0.9 in) long, with 12-25 seed scales; they are bright red, turning brown and opening to release the seeds when mature, 4 to 6 months after pollination. Tamarack larch foliage and cones in August. The lighter brown cones are from the current season; the darker brown cones are mature cones from previous seasons.

It is very cold tolerant, able to survive temperatures down to at least −65 °C (−85 °F), and commonly occurs at the arctic tree line at the edge of the tundra. Trees in these severe climatic conditions are smaller than farther south, often only 5 m (16 ft) tall. Tamarack can tolerate a wide range of soil conditions but grows most commonly in swamps in wet to moist organic soils such as sphagnum peat and woody peat. The tree is found on mineral soils that range from heavy clay to coarse sand; thus texture does not seem to be limiting. Tamarack is commonly an early invader. Tamarack is generally the first forest tree to invade filled-lake bogs. In the lake states, tamarack may appear first in the sedge mat, sphagnum moss, or not until the bog shrub stage. Farther north, it is the pioneer tree in the bog shrub stage. Tamarack is fairly well adapted to reproduce successfully on burns, so it is one of the common pioneers on sites in the boreal forest immediately after a fire.

Pinus strobus, commonly known as the eastern white pine is a large pine native to eastern North America. Pinus strobus is found in the Nearctic Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests Biome of eastern North America. It prefers well-drained soil and cool, humid climates, but can also grow in boggy areas and rocky highlands. In mixed forests, this dominant tree towers over all others, including the large broadleaf hardwoods. Some white pines live over 400 years. The eastern white pine, Pinus strobus, has the distinction of being the tallest tree in eastern North America. In natural pre-colonial stands it is reported to have grown to as tall as 70 m (230 ft). There is no means of accurately documenting the height of trees from these times, but eastern white pine may have reached this height on rare occasions. Pinus strobus is cultivated by plant nurseries as an ornamental tree, for planting in gardens and parks. The specie is low-maintenance and rapid growing as a specimen tree. With regular shearing it can also be trained as a hedge. Suitable for zone 2b.

Large, flared tree with thick-textured, green, oval leaves. Deeply fissured bark. Yellow autumn color. Good disease resistance and fast-growing.

Pruning: When leaves are half developed.

Hardiness zone: 4

Exposure: Sun, part shade.

Fagus sylvatica, the European beech or common beech, is a deciduous tree belonging to the beech family Fagaceae. It is a large tree, capable of reaching heights of up to 50 m (160 ft) tall in Europe and 3 m (9.8 ft) trunk diameter, though more typically 25–35 m (82–115 ft) tall and up to 1.5 m (4.9 ft) trunk diameter. It has a typical lifespan of 150 to 200 years, though sometimes up to 300 years. 30 years are needed to attain full maturity (compared to 40 for American beech). Like most trees, its form depends on the location: in forest areas, F. sylvatica grows to over 30 m (100 ft), with branches being high up on the trunk. In open locations, it will become much shorter (typically 15–24 m (50–80 ft)) and more massive.

The female flowers produce beechnuts, small triangular nuts 15–20 millimetres (0.59–0.79 in) long and 7–10 mm (0.28–0.39 in) wide at the base; there are two nuts in each cupule, maturing in the autumn 5–6 months after pollination. Flower and seed production is particularly abundant in years following a hot, sunny and dry summer, though rarely for two years in a row. Though not demanding of its soil type, the European beech has several significant requirements: a humid atmosphere (precipitation well distributed throughout the year and frequent fogs) and well-drained soil (it cannot handle excessive stagnant water). It prefers moderately fertile ground, calcified or lightly acidic, therefore it is found more often on the side of a hill than at the bottom of a clayey basin. European beech is a very popular ornamental tree in parks and large gardens in temperate regions of the world. In North America, they are preferred for this purpose over the native F. grandifolia, which despite its tolerance for warmer climates, is slower growing, taking an average of 10 years longer to attain maturity. It is frequently kept clipped to make attractive hedges. Since the early 19th century there have been numerous cultivars of European beech made by horticultural selection, often repeatedly; they include:

Some seedlings available.

The grey birch is a tree native to Quebec. 
Height
- Up to 12 m
Diameter
- Up to 15 cm
Maximum age
- 50 years old

Planting advice
- Humidity: Withstands all degrees of humidity
- Shade: Needs full sun
- Soil: well drained soils, but tolerates wet soils.
- This species prefers sunny environments and well drained soils, but tolerates humid soils. In Quebec, it is present mainly in the St. Lawrence plain.

Hardiness zone(s)
4a, 4b, 5a, 5b, 6a, 6b

The common hackberry is a 60-100 ft. deciduous tree, varying greatly in response to habitat. The broad crown is often erratic in shape. Tree with rounded crown of spreading or slightly drooping branches, often deformed as bushy growths called witches’-brooms. Older bark is covered with conspicuous, corky projections. The plant foliage is dull-green and rough. Its fall color is not impressive. Orange-brown to dark-purple berries are arranged in clusters. The common hackberry is native to North America from southern Ontario and Quebec, through parts of New England, south to North Carolina-(Appalachia), west to northern Oklahoma, and north to South Dakota.

The small berries, hackberries, are eaten by a number of birds and mammals. Most seeds are dispersed by animals, but some seeds are also dispersed by water. Hackberry is only occasionally used as a street or landscape tree, although its tolerance for urban conditions makes it well suited for this role. The tree's pea-sized berries are edible, ripening in early September. Unlike most fruits, the berries are remarkably high in calories from fat, carbohydrate and protein, and these calories are easily digestible without any cooking or preparation.

Mapleleaf viburnum is a shrub native to western Quebec, growing to no more than 2 m tall. It has a globular habit and upright branches covered with purple to grayish-brown bark. The deciduous leaves are wider than they are long.

Viburnum lentago (nannyberry, sheepberry, or sweet viburnum) is a species of Viburnum native to the northeastern and midwestern United States, and in southern Canada from New Brunswick west to southeastern Saskatchewan. Isolated populations are found in the Dakotas, Wyoming, Colorado, and the Appalachian Mountains as far south as Kentucky and Virginia.

It is a large shrub or small tree growing upwards to 30 ft (9 m) tall with a trunk up to ~10 inches (25 cm) diameter and a short trunk, round-topped head, pendulous, flexible branches. The bark is reddish- to grayish-brown, and broken into small scales. The twigs are pale green and covered with rusty down at first, later becoming dark reddish brown, sometimes glaucous, smooth, tough, flexible, and produce an offensive odor when crushed or bruised. The winter buds are light red, covered with pale scurfy down, protected by a pair of opposing scales. Flower-bearing buds are ~3/4 in (2 cm) long, obovate, long pointed; other terminal buds are acute, ~1/3 to 1/2 in (10–15 mm) long, while lateral buds are much smaller. The bud scales enlarge with the growing shoot and often become leaf-like.

Like all viburnums, the leaves are arranged in opposite pairs on the twigs; they are oval, ~2 - 4 in (5–10 cm) long and ~3/4 in - 2 in (2–5 cm) broad. They open from the bud involute, bronze green and shining, hairy and downy; when full grown are bright green and shining above, pale green and marked with tiny black dots beneath. In autumn they turn a deep red, or red and orange.

The flowers are small, 5–6 mm diameter, with five whitish petals, arranged in large round terminal cymes 5–12 cm diameter; flowering is in late spring. The calyx is tubular, equally five-toothed, persistent; the corolla is equally five-lobed, imbricate in the bud, cream-white, one-quarter of an inch across; lobes acute, and slightly erose. There are five stamens, inserted on the base of the corolla, alternate with its lobes, exserted; filaments slender; anthers bright yellow, oblong, introrse, versatile, two-celled; cells opening longitudinally. The pistil has a one-celled inferior ovary, the style thick, short, light green, and the stigma broad; there is one ovule in each cell. The fruit is a small round blue-black drupe, 8–16 mm long on a reddish stem; it is thick skinned, sweet and rather juicy, and edible. The stone is oblong oval, flattened.

The roots are fibrous, wood is ill-smelling. It grows in wet soil along the borders of the forest, often found in fence corners and along roadsides. The sheepberry is one of the largest of the viburnums. It is admired for its compact habit, its lustrous foliage which insects rarely disfigure, its beautiful and abundant flowers, its handsome edible fruit and its brilliant autumnal color. It readily adapts itself to cultivation, and is one of the best of the small trees of eastern America for the decoration of parks and gardens in all regions of extreme winter cold. It is easily raised from seeds which, like those of the other American species, do not germinate until the second year after they are planted.

As suggested by the alternative name sweet viburnum, the fruit is (unlike that of many viburnums) edible. The bark and leaves were also used by Native Americans in the preparation of herbal medicines.

Cornus alternifolia is a species of flowering plant in the dogwood family Cornaceae, native to eastern North America, from Newfoundland west to southern Manitoba and Minnesota, and south to northern Florida and Mississippi. It is rare in the southern United States. It is commonly known as green osier, alternate-leaved dogwood, and pagoda dogwood.

It is a small deciduous tree growing to 25 feet (8 m) (rarely 30 feet (9 m)) tall, with a trunk up to 6 inches (152 mm) in diameter. The branches develop characteristic horizontal layers separated by gaps, with a flat-topped crown. Its leaves are elliptic to ovate and grow to 2–5 inches (51–127 mm) long and 1–2 inches (25–51 mm) broad, arranged alternately on the stems, not in opposite pairs typical of the majority of Cornus species. The leaves are most often arranged in crowded clusters around the ends of the twigs and appear almost whorled. The upper sides of the leaves are smooth and green, while the undersides are hairy and a bluish color. The bark is colored gray to brown, becoming ridged as it ages. Small cream colored flowers are produced, with four small petals. The flowers are grouped into cymes, with the inflorescences 2–5 inches (51–127 mm)2-5 across. It bears berries with a blackish blue color. Leaves: Alternate, rarely opposite, often clustered at the ends of the branch, simple, three to five inches long, two to three wide, oval or ovate, wedge-shaped or rounded at base; margin is wavy toothed, slightly reflexed, apex acuminate. They come out of the bud involute, reddish green above, coated with silvery white tomentum beneath, when full grown are bright green above, pale, downy, almost white beneath. Feather-veined, midrib broad, yellowish, prominent beneath, with about six pairs of primary veins. In autumn they turn yellow, or yellow and scarlet. Petioles slender, grooved, hairy, with clasping bases.
Flowers: April, May. Perfect, cream color, borne in many-flowered, broad, open cymes, at the end of short lateral branches.
Fruit: Drupe, globular, blue-black, 0.3 in (8 mm) across, tipped with remnant of style which rises from a slight depression; nut obovoid, many-grooved. October.

C. alternifolia is found under open deciduous trees, as well as along the margins of forests and swamps. These trees prefer moist, well drained soil. Seedlings are shade-tolerant and it is often found as an understory tree in mature forests. The tree is regarded as attractive because of its wide-spreading shelving branches and flat-topped head, and is often used in ornamental plantings. The flower clusters have no great white involucre as have those of the flowering dogwood, and the fruit is dark purple instead of red.

Acer rubrum (Red Maple, also known as Swamp, Water or Soft Maple), is one of the most common and widespread deciduous trees of eastern and central North America. The U.S. Forest service recognizes it as the most common species of tree in America. The red maple ranges from southeastern Manitoba around the Lake of the Woods on the border with Ontario and Minnesota, east to Newfoundland, south to Florida, and southwest to eastern Texas. Many of its features, especially its leaves, are quite variable in form. At maturity it often attains a height of around 15 m (49 ft). It is aptly named as its flowers, petioles, twigs and seeds are all red to varying degrees. Among these features, however, it is best known for its brilliant deep scarlet foliage in autumn.

Over most of its range, red maple is adaptable to a very wide range of site conditions, perhaps more so than any other tree in eastern North America. It can be found growing in swamps, on poor dry soils, and most anywhere in between. It grows well from sea level to about 900 m (3,000 ft). Due to its attractive fall foliage and pleasing form, it is often used as a shade tree for landscapes. It is used commercially on a small scale for maple syrup production as well as for its medium to high quality lumber.

Though A. rubrum is usually easy to identify, it is highly changeable in morphological characteristics. It is a medium to large sized tree, reaching heights of 18 to 27 metres (59 to 89 ft) and exceptionally over 35 metres (115 feet). The leaves are usually 9 to 11 centimetres (3.5 to 4.3 in) long on a full grown tree. The trunk diameter can range from 46 to 76 cm (18 to 30 in), depending on the growing conditions.[7] Its spread is about 12 m (39 ft). A 10-year-old sapling will stand about 6 m (20 ft) tall. In forests, the bark will remain free of branches until some distance up the tree. Individuals grown in the open are shorter and thicker with a more rounded crown.[8] Generally speaking, however, the crown is irregularly ovoid with ascending whip-like curved shoots. The bark is a pale grey and smooth when the individual is young. As the tree grows the bark becomes darker and cracks into slightly raised long plates.[9] The largest known living red maple is located near Armada, Michigan, at a height of 38.1 m (125 ft) and a bole circumference, at breast height, of 4.95 m (16.2 ft).

Red maple seldom lives longer than 150 years, making it short to medium lived. It reaches maturity in 70 to 80 years. Its ability to thrive in a large number of habitats is largely due to its ability to produce roots to suit its site from a young age. In wet locations, red maple seedlings produce short taproots with long and developed lateral roots, while on dry sites, they develop long taproots with significantly shorter laterals. The roots are primarily horizontal, however, forming in the upper 25 cm (9.8 in) of the ground. Mature trees have woody roots up to 25 m (82 ft) long. They are very tolerant of flooding, with one study showing that 60 days of flooding caused no leaf damage. At the same time, they are tolerant of drought due to their ability to stop growing under dry conditions by then producing a second growth flush when conditions later improve, even if growth has stopped for 2 weeks.

Picea rubens, commonly known as red spruce, is a species of spruce native to eastern North America, ranging from eastern Quebec to Nova Scotia, and from New England south in the Adirondack Mountains and Appalachians to western North Carolina.This species is also known as yellow spruce, West Virginia spruce, eastern spruce, and he-balsam.

Red spruce is a perennial, shade-tolerant, late successional coniferous tree which under optimal conditions grows to 18–40 m (59–131 ft) tall with a trunk diameter of about 60 cm (24 in), though exceptional specimens can reach 46 m (151 ft) tall and 100 cm (39 inches) in diameter. It has a narrow conical crown. The leaves are needle-like, yellow-green, 12–15 mm long, four-sided, curved, with a sharp point, and extend from all sides of the twig. The bark is gray-brown on the surface and red-brown on the inside, thin, and scaly. The wood is light, soft, has narrow rings, and has a slight red tinge.The cones are cylindrical, 3–5 cm (1 1⁄4–2 in) long, with a glossy red-brown color and stiff scales. The cones hang down from branches.

Red spruce grows at a slow to moderate rate, lives for 250 to 450+ years, and is very shade-tolerant when young.[12] It is often found in pure stands or forests mixed with eastern white pine, balsam fir, or black spruce. Along with Fraser fir, red spruce is one of two primary tree types in the southern Appalachian spruce-fir forest, a distinct ecosystem found only in the highest elevations of the Southern Appalachian Mountains.[13] Its habitat is moist but well-drained sandy loam, often at high altitudes. Red spruce can be easily damaged by windthrow and acid rain.

Related species

It is closely related to black spruce, and hybrids between the two are frequent where their ranges meet.

Red spruce is used for Christmas trees and is an important wood used in making paper pulp. It is also an excellent tonewood, and is used in many higher-end acoustic guitars and violins, as well as musical soundboard. The sap can be used to make spruce gum. Leafy red spruce twigs are boiled as a part of making spruce beer. Also it can be made into spruce pudding. It can also be used as construction lumber and is good for millwork and for crates.

Red spruce is the provincial tree of Nova Scotia.

Damaging factors

Like most trees, red spruce is subject to insect parasitism. Their insect enemy is the spruce budworm, although it is a bigger problem for white spruce and balsam fir. Other issues that have been damaging red spruce has been the increase in acid rain and current climate change.

Ulmus thomasii, the Rock Elm or cork elm, is a deciduous tree native primarily to the Midwestern United States. The tree ranges from southern Ontario and Quebec in Canada.

The tree was named in 1902 for David Thomas, an American civil engineer who had first named and described the tree in 1831 as Ulmus racemosa. Ulmus thomasii grows as a tree from 15–30 m (50–100 feet) tall, and may live for up to 300 years. Where forest-grown, the crown is cylindrical and upright with short branches, and is narrower than most other elms. Rock elm is also unusual among North American elms in that it is often monopodial. The bark is grey-brown and deeply furrowed into scaly, flattened ridges. Many older branches have 3–4 irregular thick corky wings. It is for this reason the rock elm is sometimes called the cork elm.

The leaves are 5 – 10 cm long and 2 – 5 cm wide, oval to obovate with a round, symmetrical base and acuminate apex. The leaf surface is shiny dark green, turning bright yellow in autumn; the underside is pubescent. The perfect apetalous, wind pollinated flowers are red-green and appear in racemes < 40 mm long two weeks before the leaves from March to May, depending on the tree's location. The fruit is a broad ovate samara 13 – 25 mm long covered with fine hair, notched at the tip, and maturing during May or June to form drooping clusters at the leaf bases.

Ulmus thomasii is moderately shade-tolerant. Its preferred habitat is moist but well-drained sandy loam, loam, or silt loam soil, mixed with other hardwoods. However, it also grows on dry uplands, especially on rocky ridges and limestone bluffs. Like most North American elms (Ulmus), U. thomasii is very susceptible to Dutch elm disease.

The wood of the rock elm is the hardest and heaviest of all elms, and where forest-grown remains comparatively free of knots and other defects. It is also very strong and takes a high polish, and consequently was once in great demand in America and Europe for a wide range of uses, notably shipbuilding, furniture, agricultural tools, and musical instruments.

Acer saccharinum, commonly known as silver maple, creek maple, silverleaf maple,soft maple, water maple,swamp maple, or white maple is a species of maple native to eastern and central North America in the eastern United States and Canada. It is one of the most common trees in the United States. The silver maple tree is a relatively fast-growing deciduous tree, commonly reaching a height of 15–25 m (49–82 ft), exceptionally 35 m (115 ft). Its spread will generally be 11–15 m (36–49 ft) wide. A 10-year-old sapling will stand about 8 m (26 ft) tall. It is often found along waterways and in wetlands, leading to the colloquial name "water maple". It is a highly adaptable tree, although it has higher sunlight requirements than other maple trees.

The leaves are simple and palmately veined, 8–16 cm long and 6–12 cm broad, with deep angular notches between the five lobes. The 5–12 cm long, slender stalks of the leaves mean that even a light breeze can produce a striking effect as the downy silver undersides of the leaves are exposed. The autumn color is less pronounced than in many maples, generally ending up a pale yellow, although some specimens can produce a more brilliant yellow and even orange and red colorations. The tree has a tendency to color and drop its leaves slightly earlier in fall.

The flowers are in dense clusters, produced before the leaves in early spring,[4] with the seeds maturing in early summer. The fruit are samaras, each containing a single seed, and winged, in pairs, small (5–10 mm diameter), the wing about 3–5 cm long. The fruit are the largest of any native maple. Although the wings provide for some transport by air, the fruit are heavy and are also transported by water. Silver Maple and its close cousin Red Maple are the only Acer species which produce their fruit crop in spring instead of fall. The seeds of both trees have no epigeal dormancy and will germinate immediately. On mature trunks, the bark is gray and shaggy. On branches and young trunks, the bark is smooth and silvery gray. Typical yellow autumn leaf color. Atypical reddish autumn color; this sort of coloration is sporadic and uncommon

Wildlife uses the silver maple in various ways. In many parts of the eastern Canada., the large rounded buds are one of the primary food sources for squirrels during the spring, after many acorns and nuts have sprouted and the squirrels' food is scarce. The seeds are also a food source for squirrels, chipmunks and birds. The bark can be eaten by beaver and deer. The trunks tend to produce cavities, which can shelter squirrels, raccoons, opossums, owls and woodpeckers.

Today the wood can be used as pulp for making paper. Lumber from the tree is used in furniture, cabinets, flooring, musical instruments, crates and tool handles, because it is light and easily worked. Because of the silver maple's fast growth, it is being researched as a potential source of biofuels. Silver maple produces a sweet sap, but it is generally not used by commercial sugarmakers because its sugar content is lower than in other maple species.

The silver maple is often planted as an ornamental tree because of its rapid growth and ease of propagation and transplanting. It is highly tolerant of urban situations, and is frequently planted next to streets. However, its quick growth produces brittle wood, and is commonly damaged in storms. The silver maple's root system is shallow and fibrous, and easily invades septic fields and old drain pipes; it can also crack sidewalks and foundations. It is a vigorous resprouter, and if not pruned, will often grow with multiple trunks. Although it naturally is found near water, it can grow on drier ground if planted there. In ideal natural conditions, A. saccharinum may live up 130 years, but in urban environments often 80 or less.

Following WW II, silver maples were commonly used as a landscaping and street tree in suburban housing developments and cities due to their rapid growth, especially as a replacement for the blighted American Elm. However, they fell out of favor for this purpose because of brittle wood, unattractive form when not pruned or trained, and tendency to produce large numbers of volunteer seedlings, and nowadays it is much less popular for this purpose to the point where some towns and cities banned its use as a street tree.

It is also commonly cultivated outside its native range, showing tolerance of a wide range of climates, growing successfully as far north as central Norway and south to Orlando, Florida. It can thrive in a Mediterranean climate, as at Jerusalem and Los Angeles, if summer water is provided. It is also grown in temperate parts of the Southern Hemisphere: Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela, the southern states of Brazil (as well as in a few low-temperature locations within the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais).

The silver maple is closely related to the red maple (Acer rubrum), and can hybridise with it. The hybrid variation is known as the Freeman maple (Acer x freemanii). The Freeman maple is a popular ornamental tree in parks and large gardens, combining the fast growth of silver maple with the less brittle wood, less invasive roots, and the beautiful bright red fall foliage of the red maple.

information source: wikipedia

Acer saccharum (sugar maple or rock maple) is a specie of maple native to the hardwood forests of southeastern Canada and northeastern USA . Sugar maple is best known for its bright fall foliage and for being the primary source of maple syrup. It is a deciduous tree normally reaching heights of 25–35 m (82–115 ft) tall, and exceptionally up to 45 m (148 ft). A 10-year-old tree is typically about 5 m (16 ft) tall. When healthy the Sugar Maple can live for over 400 years. The sugar maple is an extremely important specie to the ecology of many forests in America and Canada. Pure stands are common, and it is a major component of the northern and central U.S. hardwood forests.

Sugar maple tends to favor cooler climates. It attains its greatest size and growth potential in southern Canada and the New England states where the growing season is 4–5 months and summers are mild. In this region, the tree is abundant and found in large stands with beech and birches. The sugar maple is among the most shade tolerant of large deciduous trees. Its shade tolerance is exceeded only by the striped maple, a smaller tree. Like other maples, its shade tolerance is manifested in its ability to germinate and persist under a closed canopy as an understory plant, and respond with rapid growth to the increased light formed by a gap in the canopy. The sugar maple can grow comfortably in any type of soil except sand.

The sugar maple was a favorite street and park tree during the 19th century because it was easy to propagate and transplant, is fairly fast-growing, and has beautiful fall color. As noted above however, it proved too delicate to continue in that role after the rise of automobile-induced pollution and was replaced by Acer platanoides and other hardier species. The shade and the shallow, fibrous roots may interfere with grass growing under the trees. Deep, well-drained loam is the best rooting medium, although sugar maples can grow well on sandy soil which has a good buildup of humus. Light (or loose) clay soils are also well known to support sugar maple growth. Poorly drained areas are unsuitable, and the species is especially short-lived on flood-prone clay flats. Its salt tolerance is low. Suitable for zone 3b

Sweet briar, sweetbriar rose, sweet brier or eglantine is a species of rose native to Europe and western Asia.

It is a dense deciduous shrub 2–3 m high and across, with the stems bearing numerous hooked prickles. The foliage has a strong apple-like fragrance. The leaves are pinnate, 5–9 cm long, with 5–9 rounded to oval leaflets with a serrated margin, and numerous glandular hairs. The flowers are 1.8–3 cm diameter, the five petals being pink with a white base, and the numerous stamens yellow; the flowers are produced in clusters of 2–7 together, from late spring to mid summer. The fruit is a globose to oblong red hip 1–2 cm diameter.

Suitable for: light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils, prefers well-drained soil and can grow in heavy clay soil.

Suitable pH: acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils and can grow in very alkaline soils.
It can grow in semi-shade (light woodland) or no shade. It prefers moist soil.

Fruit - cooked. It is used in making jellies etc. The taste is best after a frost. The fruit is up to 25mm in diameter, but there is only a thin layer of flesh surrounding the many seeds. Some care has to be taken when eating this fruit, see the notes above on known hazards. A pleasant tasting fruity-flavoured tea is made from the fruit, it is rich in vitamin C.

Petals - raw or cooked. Remove the bitter white base. Used in confectionery.

Young shoots - raw. Used as they come through the ground in spring. The seed is a good source of vitamin E, it can be ground into a powder and mixed with flour or added to other foods as a supplement. Be sure to remove the seed hairs.


 

Halesia, also known as silverbell or snowdrop tree, is a small genus of four or five species of deciduous large shrubs or small trees in the family Styracaceae. They are native to eastern Asia (southeast China) and eastern North America (southern Ontario, Canada south through Florida and eastern Texas, United States). They grow to 5–20 m (16–66 ft) tall (rarely to 39 m (128 ft)), and have alternate, simple ovate leaves 5–16 cm long and 3–8 cm broad. The flowers are pendulous, white or pale pink, produced in open clusters of 2-6 flowers, each flower's being 1–3 cm long. The fruit is a distinctive, oblong dry drupe 2–4 cm long. All species except H. diptera have four narrow longitudinal ribs or wings on fruit; diptera only has two, making it the most distinctive of the group.

H. monticola is the largest of the genus, with specimens up to 39 m (128 ft) tall known in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. Silverbells are popular ornamental plants in large gardens, grown for their delicate pendulous flowers in late spring. They are hardy to zone 5a in Canada

Culture

Easily grown in average, medium moisture, well-drained soils in full sun to part shade. Best flowering is in full sun. Prefers moist, acidic, organically rich soils. Consistent moisture is best (leaf scorch may occur during periods of summer drought). Shrubs have some tolerance for clay soils as long as drainage is good. Promptly remove root suckers to prevent colonial spread. It is particularly important to remove root suckers rising from below a graft union. Prune in spring after flowering to control shape and size.

Noteworthy Characteristics

Hamamelis vernalis, commonly called Ozark witch hazel, is native to the Ozark Plateau extending from southern Missouri through northwestern Arkansas to eastern Oklahoma. In Missouri, it is typically found in gravelly stream beds, bases of rocky slopes along streams and less frequently in rocky wooded hillsides where it spreads by suckers to form large colonies (Steyermark). It typically grows to 6' tall. Flowers in axillary clusters appear in mid to late winter (January-March in St. Louis) prior to the emergence of the foliage in a variety of colors ranging from pale yellow to dark reddish purple. Each flower has four, narrow, ribbon-like, curled and crinkled petals (each to only 1/3" long) that are usually red at the base transitioning to copper orange at the tip. Calyx cup is dull red. Ovate-rounded leaves (to 3” long) emerge light green with reddish-bronze tints in spring, but quickly mature to medium to dark green. Golden yellow fall color. Fruit is a non-showy dehiscent capsule which splits open in September-October to release its seeds.

Genus name comes from the Greek words hama meaning at same time and melon meaning apple or fruit in reference to the occurrence of both fruit and flowers at the same time on this shrub (particularly in the case of fall flowering members of the genus).

Specific epithet from Latin means spring in reference to the flower bloom.

Problems

No serious insect or disease problems. Caterpillars and Japanese beetles may chew on the leaves. Watch for leaf gall aphids, weevils, scale, leafroller and leafminer. Potential diseases include powdery mildew, occasional leaf spots and rots.

Garden Uses

Superior winter-flowering shrub for the landscape. Shrub borders, woodland gardens. Screen or tall hedge. Good specimen.

A selection introduced by Synnestvedt Nursery of Illinois in 1967, originally found in the collections of the Morton Arboretum.  Foliage is a glossy, lustrous green, hence its name.  Matures at 10-12' tall and 8-10' wide.  Flowers and fruit of the species.  Authors note: the foliage on this dentatum has withstood the most brutal of heat and drought conditions without showing any signs of spotting or scorch and we have experienced such an abundance of fruit that the branches were literally weighted to the ground.  An extremely durable yet attractive plant but overlooked because of its ultimate size. 

The White Birch is a small to medium sized deciduous tree which grows to 70 or 80 feet in height. As far as trees go it doesn't live very long, only about 140 years. Small hear-shaped leaves are found at the ends of drooping twigs and branches. The paper birch has both male and female flowers called catkins. These turn into little winged nutkins, which ripen in early August to mid September. The wings help the seeds to fly away from the parent tree so there won't be competition for food and water.

You can identify this tree by its white bark which peels easily and is marked by narrow horizontal stripes. White birch trees can either have one slender stem or several stems. Moose like to browse on the young trees and will eat off the tops. This forces the tree to send up more stems.

The paper birch doesn't like shade and is the first tree to grow back in places that have had a fire or where trees have been cut.

Although moose and white-tailed deer will eat the leaves and tender shoots of the paper birch, it isn't their favorite food. Porcupines like to eat the bark and rabbits will eat the seedlings and young saplings. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers will peck little holes in the bark and feed on the sap. Hummingbirds and squirrels also drink the sap from the sap wells the sapsuckers made.

The bark is often used as a fire starter because it burns even when its wet. Native Americans also used the bark to cover their canoes. They also used it to make baskets, baby carriers, mats, torches and moose calls. Because the wood was strong and flexible it was made into spears, bows and arrows, snowshoes and sleds. The wood is now used for building lumber to make veneer, pulpwood and plywood. Syrup, wine, beer, and medicinal tonics are made from the sap.

The white birch is found in Newfoundland, Labrador, Canada, and from New England to North Carolina in the United States. It prefers colder climates, however. best in zone 2 to 6

Ilex verticillata, the winterberry, is a specie of holly native to eastern North America in the United States and southeast Canada, from Newfoundland west to Ontario and Minnesota, and south to Alabama.

Other names that have been used include Black Alder Winterberry, Brook Alder, Canada holly, Coralberry, Deciduous Holly, Deciduous Winterberry, False alder, Fever bush, Inkberry, Michigan Holly, Possumhaw, Swamp Holly, Virginian Winterberry, or Winterberry Holly. The specie occurs particularly in wetland habitats, but also on dry sand dunes and grassland. The berries are an important food resource for numerous species of birds.[4]

Ilex verticillata is a shrub growing to 1–5 metres (3.3–16.4 ft) tall. It is one of a number of hollies which are deciduous, losing their leaves in the fall. In wet sites, it will spread to form a dense thicket, while in dry soil it remains a tight shrub. The leaves are glossy green, 3.5–9 cm long, 1.5–3.5 cm broad, with a serrated margin and an acute apex. The flowers are small, 5 mm diameter, with five to eight white petals. The fruit is a globose red drupe 6–8 mm diameter, which often persists on the branches long into the winter, giving the plant its English name. Like most hollies, it is dioecious, with separate male and female plants; the proximity of at least one male plant is required to pollenize the females in order to bear fruit.
 

The berries were used by Native Americans for medicinal purposes, the origin of the name "fever bush".

Ilex verticillata - the American Winterberry - is prized as an ornamental plant in gardens for the midwinter splash of bright color from densely packed berries, whose visibility is heightened by the loss of foliage; therefore it is popular even where other, evergreen, hollies are also grown. The bare branches covered in berries are also popular for cutting and use in floral arrangements. It is a tough plant which is easy to grow, with very few diseases or pests. Although wet acidic soils are optimal, the winterberry will grow well in the average garden. Numerous cultivars are available, differing in size and shape of the plant and color of the berry. At least one male plant must be planted in proximity to one or more females for them to bear fruit. Suitable for zone 3b.

Zone 5

culture

Easily grown in average, medium moisture, well-drained soils in full sun to part shade. Best flowering is in full sun. Prefers moist, acidic, organically rich soils. Consistent moisture is best (leaf scorch may occur during periods of summer drought). Shrubs have some tolerance for clay soils as long as drainage is good. Promptly remove root suckers to prevent colonial spread. It is particularly important to remove root suckers rising from below a graft union. Prune in spring after flowering to control shape and size.

Noteworthy Characteristics

Hamamelis × intermedia hybrids are crosses between Japanese witch hazel (H. japonica) and Chinese witch hazel (H. mollis). They are somewhat coarse, loosely-branched, medium to large, deciduous shrubs that typically grow 12-20’ tall. They are particularly noted for their spidery, often fragrant, mid- to late winter flowers which appear before the spring foliage emerges.

Genus name comes from the Greek words hama meaning at same time and melon meaning apple or fruit in reference to the occurrence of both fruit and flowers at the same time on this shrub (particularly in the case of fall flowering members of the genus).

The hybrid name intermedia is in reference to the hybrid characteristics being intermediate between the characteristics of the two parent species.

‘Jelena’ is an upright cultivar with ascending branches and a spreading habit. It will typically grow slowly to 8-12’ tall, and is noted for its winter-blooming, sweetly fragrant, copper flowers (to 1” long), each having four narrow, ribbon-like, crinkly petals. Upon close inspection, however, the flower petals are actually multi-colored, having reddish bases, orange centers and yellow tips. Axillary clusters of these flowers bloom along the stems in February to March. Broad-oval, green leaves (to 6” long). Orange-red fall color is usually quite attractive. Synonymous with and formerly called H. x intermedia ‘Copper Beauty’.

Easily grown in average, medium moisture, well-drained soils in full sun to part shade. Best flowering in full sun. Prefers moist, acidic, organically rich soils. Tolerates heavy clay soils. Promptly remove suckers to prevent colonial spread. Little pruning is required. Prune in early spring if necessary. Best in hardinesse zone 3-6.

Noteworthy Characteristics

Hamamelis virginiana, known as common witch hazel, is a fall-blooming, deciduous shrub or small tree that is native to woodlands, forest margins and stream banks in eastern North America. It typically grows 15-20’ tall with a similar spread in cultivation, but can reach 30’ tall in its native habitat. Stem-hugging clusters of fragrant bright yellow flowers, each with four crinkly, ribbon-shaped petals, appear along the branches from October to December, usually after leaf drop but sometimes at the time of fall color. Fertilized flowers will form fruit over a long period extending through winter and into the following growing season. Fruits are greenish seed capsules that become woody with age and mature to light brown. Each seed capsule splits open in fall of the following year, exploding the 1-2 black seeds within for up to 30 feet. Oval to obovate, medium to dark green leaves (to 6” long) with dentate to wavy margins turn quality shades of yellow in fall. Plants of this species are usually the last native flowering plants to bloom in Missouri each year.

Genus name comes from the Greek words hama meaning at same time and melon meaning apple or fruit in reference to the occurrence of both fruit and flowers at the same time on this shrub (particularly in the case of fall flowering members of the genus). No serious insect or disease problems. Occasional insect galls (small wasps) appear on the foliage. Japanese beetles may chew on the leaves in some areas.

Easily grown in average, medium to wet, well-drained soils in full sun to part shade. Prefers moist loams, but tolerates a wide range of soils including boggy ones. For best cross-pollination and subsequent fruit display, plant shrubs in groups rather than as single specimens. Prune as needed in late fall or early spring. Suitable for zone 3 to 6

Viburnum cassinoides is commonly called witherod viburnum. Withe (from Old English) means flexible twig and rod means slender shoot or stem. It is native primarily to northeastern North America (hence the occasional common name of northern witherod) where it is typically found in low woods, fields, swamps, marshes, pond peripheries and bogs. It is closely related to Viburnum nudum, and is sometimes designated as V. nudum var. cassenoides. V. nudum is primarily native to southeastern North America (hence the occasional common name of southern witherod). Both species are noted for having handsome fruit displays. V. cassinoides is a dense, rounded, multi-stemmed, upright-spreading, deciduous shrub that typically grows to 5- 6' (less frequently to 12') tall. Elliptic to ovate leaves (to 3 1/2" long) sometimes with crenulate margins emerge in spring with bronze tones, mature to a dull dark green in summer and finally turn attractive shades of orange-red to red-purple in fall. Creamy white flowers (3/16" across) in flat-topped clusters (cymes 2-5" wide) bloom in late spring (May-June). Flowers are followed by green fruit (5/16" long) that turns pink to red to blue to black in fall (sometimes with two or more colors simultaneously displayed in the same cluster. Berries provide sharp contrast to the foliage, and will remain on the plant after foliage drop to provide excellent winter interest. Other common names for this shrub are blue haw, swamp haw and wild raisin.

Problems

No serious insect or disease problems. Occasional insect pests include aphids, borers, nematodes, scale and thrips. Occasional disease problems include anthracnose, leaf spots and powdery mildew.

Garden Uses

Ornamental shrub featuring excellent spring flowers, fall color and fall-winter fruit. Mass, groups or specimen/accent. Shrub borders, foundations, hedges or roadside plantings. Water garden peripheries. Naturalized areas.

Betula alleghaniensis (yellow birch, also known as golden birch), is a large and important lumber species of birch native to North-eastern North America. The name "yellow birch" reflects the color of the tree's bark. The name Betula lutea was used expansively for this tree but has now been replaced.

Betula alleghaniensis is the provincial tree of Quebec, where it is commonly called merisier, a name which in France is used for the wild cherry. It is a medium-sized, typically single stemmed, deciduous tree reaching 60–80 feet (18–24 m) tall (exceptionally to 100 ft (30 m) with a trunk typically 2–3 ft (0.61–0.91 m) in diameter.Yellow birch is a relatively long lived birch which typically grows 150 years and may even grow up to 300 in old growth forests.

It mostly reproduces by seed. Mature trees typically start producing seeds at about 40 years but may start as young as 20.The optimum age for seed production is about 70 years. Good seed crops are not produced every year, and tend to be produced in intervals of 1–4 years with the years between good years having little seed production. The seeds germinate best on mossy logs, decaying wood or cracks in boulders since they cannot penetrate the leaf litter layer.Yellow birch saplings will not establish in full shade (under a closed canopy) so they typically need disturbances in a forest in order to establish and grow.

The bark on mature trees is a shiny yellow-bronze which flakes and peels in fine horizontal strips.[1][6] The bark often has small black marks and dark horizontal lenticels. After the tree reaches a diameter greater than 1 ft the bark typically stops shredding and reveal a platy outer bark although the thinner branches will still have the shreddy bark.The leaves are alternately placed on the stem, oval in shape with a pointed tip and often a slightly heart shaped (cordate) base. They are 2–5 in (5.1–12.7 cm) long and typically half as wide[4] with a finely serrated (doubly serrate) margin. They are dark green in color on the upper side and lighter on the bottom, the veins on the bottom are also pubescent.The leaves arise in pairs or singularly from small spur shoots.In the fall the leaves turn a bright yellow color.

The leaf has a very short petiole .25–.5 in (0.64–1.27 cm) long.
The flowers are wind-pollinated catkins which open in later spring.[3] Both male and female flowers will occur on the same tree making the plant monoecious. The male catkins are 2–4 in (5.1–10.2 cm) long, yellow purple, pendulous (hang downwards), and occur in groups of 3-6 on the previous year's growth. The female catkins are erect (point upward) and 1.5–3 cm (0.59–1.18 in) long and oval in shape, they arise from short spur branches with the leaves.The fruit, mature in fall, is composed of numerous tiny winged seeds packed between the catkin bracts.
The seed is a winged samara with two wings which are shorter than the width of the seed which matures and gets released in autumn.

Its native range extends from Newfoundland to Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, southern Quebec and Ontario, and the southeast corner of Manitoba in Canada, west to Minnesota, and south in the Appalachian Mountains to northern Georgia. While its range extends as far south as Georgia, it is most abundant in the northern part of its range and only occurs in high elevations in the southern part of the range.It grows in USDA zones 3-7.

B. alleghaniensis prefers to grow in cooler conditions and is often found on north facing slopes, swamps, stream banks, and rich woods. It does not grow well in dry regions or regions with hot summers. It grows soil pH ranging from 4-8.

Uses

Yellow birch is considered the most important species birch for lumber and important hardwood timber tree; as such the wood of Betula alleghaniensis is extensively used for flooring, furniture, doors, veneer,cabinetry and toothpicks.Most wood sold as birch in North America is from this tree. Its wood is relatively strong, close grained, and heavy. The wood varies in color from reddish brown to creamy white and accepts stain and can be worked to a high polish.

The papery, shredded bark, is very flammable and can be peeled off and used as a fire starter even in wet conditions. Yellow birch has been used medicinally by Native Americans as a blood purifier and as other uses.Yellow birch can be tapped for syrup similarly to sugar maple although the sap has less sugar content, it flows in greater quantity than sugar maple. When the sap is boiled down the wintergreen evaporates and leaves a syrup not unlike maple syrup. The sap can also be used as is in birch syrup or may be flavored. Tea can also be made from the twigs and inner bark.

source: Wikipedia