Friday, November 16, 2007

Native trees for Black Gumbo Soil

I have a list that I printed out from the Native Plant Society of Houston website back in July, which has now disappeared from the web.

Fortunately, someone else has posted the same list on Livejournal--with pictures.

But, just in case that vanishes too, I'll list the names of the trees here. I have no idea who the original author is, or I would be sure to list his or her name here.


Trees:

Bald Cypress (taxodium distichum) is a long lived shade tree (to 100") with feathery leaves. it has yellow-to-rust fall color then the leaves fall and its bald for the winter. the fruit is a 1" round cone.


Swamp Chestnut Oak (quercus michauxii) leaves turn bright red in the fall. this long lived shade tree can grow to 80 feet. it can take standing water for up to a week.


Water Oak (quercus nigra) is semi-evergreen which means that the leaves stay on in warm winters and fall of in cold. this shade tree grows rapidly to 30' (and usually gets taller) with three different leaf shapes.


Willow Oak (quercus phellos) has long, narrow willow-like leaves so theres not much to rake in fall.


River Birch (betula nigra) is a lovely shade tree which grows to a height of 90 ft. and has triangular leaves rounded on the bottom which turn yellow in the fall. the flaking bark is outstanding. saplings have red cherry-like bark and later peachy-white flaking to reveal darker peach-colored bark.


Black Gum (nyssa sylvatica) is a large shade tree to 100 feet with short crooked branches which come off the trunk at right angles. it turns bright red in early fall (sometimes even in august). the females have 1/2 inch black berries which birds relish.


Drummond Red Maple (acer rubrum variety drummondii) is a large shade tree to 90 feet tall. it grows fast but can live 50 years and features red flowers in january on males, and red winged fruits on females in spring called samuras. if the winter weather is cold enough, drummond red maple turns yellow then red before losing leaves.


Green Ash (fraxinus pennsylvanica) is a fast growing shade tree to 50' with yellow fall color. female green ashes have bunches of green matchstick-sized fruit which birds love.


Fringe Tree (chiocanthus virginicus) is an understory tree that blooms in spring with fragrant long-petaled white flowers that look like fringe all over the tree. the leaves are 4 to 8 inches long.


Parsley Hawthorn (crataegus marshallii) is an understory tree to 20 feet whose leaves look like parsley. this thorny tree has sparkling white flowers in spring with pink stamens, followed by red 1/3 inch fruit in the fall which birds and small mammals love, and yellow fall color. the gray bark flakes to reveal the orange inner bark. butterfly larva eat the foliage and birds like to nest in the tree.


Rough-Leaf Dogwood (cornus drummondii) is very different from its "cousin" the showy flowring dogwood (conus florida). the rough-leaf dogwood has clusters of small white blooms in spring rather than the showy white bracts of its cousin. it has white berries in the fall.


Snowbell (styrax americana) is a small ornamental tree with oval leaves that only gets 10 feet high. it has white blooms all over the tree in spring that hang downward showing the yellow stamens.


Indigo-Bush Amorpha or False Indigo (amorpha fruticosa) is an understory tree with small compound leaves and 4-8 inch spikes of purple flowers with electric orange anthers in spring. it gets 5 to 10 feet high and is good for erosion control.


Sweetbay Magnolia (magnolia virginiana) is much smaller than the southern magnolia and likes swampy places. it has the same fragrant flowers in spring but smaller (1"-3"). this understory tree is semi-evergreen, the leaves have white undersides. it has 2" brown cones with many compartments which split open and the 1/2 inch red seeds dangle by a thread-like structure.




For more listings of native plants for this region, I recommend Habitat Gardening for Houston and Southeast Texas by Mark and Mary Bowen. I purchased my copy at Urban Harvest. There are other good books out there too, which I have not yet had the opportunity to look at.

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