This article was published in the Elsberry Democrat.

I’m interested in fruits and nuts that are native to North America, especially those in our region.  One of these native nuts is the black walnut, Juglans nigra.  The nut of this tree is more flavorful than any other walnut, but the wood is the most valuable part.  Challenging mahogany in its beauty, it is dense and strong, much desired by wood workers and furniture makers.  The trees are tough and slow growing, tolerating sporadic flooding and accumulating value as a veneer log for future generations in rural areas.  It is one of the most valuable woods in North America, and in Missouri.  Unfortunately, this natural resource is at risk.

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This article was published in the Elsberry Democrat.

In the summer of 2002, an exotic beetle was discovered killing trees in the United States.  The emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis, is native to eastern Asia, but was inadvertently transported in solid wood packing material to Michigan, probably sometime in the 1990’s.  While the adults of this beetle only eat a small fraction of the available leaves, the immature larvae devour the inner bark of any and all ash trees.  The S-shaped galleries of the pale green larvae girdle the trees and prevent them from moving water and nutrients through its vascular system.  Within a few years of having been identified as infested, the crown of an attacked ash tree dies back.

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This article was published in the Elsberry Democrat.

While I was hiking in Kentucky recently, I saw the remnants of a giant that wouldn’t die.  On the side of the trail were numerous young American chestnut trees, Castanea dentata.  They were sprouts from the rootstock of trees that dominated the eastern half of the United States until the early 1900s.  And dominated is not too strong a word.  One in four trees in the Appalachian Mountains was an American chestnut. The trees grew from Maine to the Mississippi river, and it was said that a squirrel could jump from chestnut tree to chestnut tree from Maine to Georgia without ever touching the ground.

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This article was published in the Elsberry Democrat.

I was invited to a friend’s family barbeque a few weekends ago, and brought the hostess a Ruellia plant, also known as wild petunia, as a birthday gift.  I joined a number of the guests on the lawn, and listened as the conversation turned to landscaping.  Many people have limited experience with horticulture, and don’t know what to plant, or where.

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