Spring

This is an exciting time to be looking at trees. Buds swell and break, flowers open, shoots elongate, leaves unfurl. It started over a month ago with the silver maples. Those whorls of buds exploding into lots of tiny red and yellow flowers. Now those flowers have become developing samaras and those are being shaded by the newly developing leaves.

Other trees are still waiting. The horribly situated Amur Corktrees that line a nearby block are still showing naught but their scraggly skeleton. The walnuts are still patiently waiting. But the cherries and pears are in full bloom, and the dogwoods are not far behind.

The edges are where interesting things happen. The edges between forest and glade, lake and shore, but also between winter and spring. So get out there and look at the trees. We all get a fixed number of springs to enjoy in our life time . Don't let this one go by unnoticed.




A red maple twig showing developing samaras and new leaves.





A silver maple's developing samaras. Note the sharp angle between the two wings, the obvious asymmetry of some pairs, and the vague tadpole shape of the longer wings.







The tassels and new leaves of a willow oak.






Nothing beats a redbud for early spring knock-you-on-your-butt beauty.

Ashes and Maples

Spring is nearly here in Philadelphia. Last week I saw a small forest of snowdrops by Ithan elementary. And just today, I noticed a few silver maple buds had broken on some of the street trees. Soon all the red and silver maples will be lit up with small whorls of yellow-red-brown flowers. Soon the Redbuds will be stopping people in their tracks and soon the Forsythia will be painting wide yellow swaths on the landscape.

I've spent the past month thinking about all the wonderful things I would tell you about winter tree identification. Now that I'm finally getting around to this, it's almost spring. Today I examined a young beach whose buds had swelled and were nothing like the long, thin, elegant buds we see all winter. The red maples are looking fuzzier than ever. Spring is coming quick. Despite that, I'm going to talk about winter ID anyway.

In winter, you ain't got no leaves. Who needs them anyway? Bark color and texture, as well as overall structure, can be very telling. Let's take the ashes for example. In summer, they're a mess of leaves. On a tree that presents like an ash, big and bushy and indistinct, I go right for the bark. But in winter it's so much easier. Ashes have alternate branching and, in winter, that alternate branching can be seen from afar if you look at the tips of the branches. The ends are like pitch-forks and those upper branches are very regular in appearance. No other tree looks like this.

But don't maples also have alternate branching? You bet. But it's not obvious from afar. You really have to look hard to notice it. There is, however, one species of maple that can be easily picked out from the moving car, the Silver Maple. Here again I'm going to want you to look at the tips of the branches, way up in the crown. There you will see ... how to describe it ... all the twigs are covered with visible protrusions. These are the buds, and in Silver Maple, they are red, whorled and extremely prominent, forming dense clusters. Case closed? Well, Red maples can also have bud clusters that look very similar to the Silver Maple. How can you tell the difference? Bark. Any Silver Maple limb over 6" in diameter will have rough bark, while Red Maples have smooth bark on up past 12" diameter. On old trunks, a Silver Maple will often be very shaggy, with strips pealing from one end. Old Red Maples will never have shaggy bark.

So, it's not too late to spot some Ashes and Silver Maples. Look up, at the branch tips. You'll start seeing these common trees everywhere.








The pitch-fork like alternate branching of the Ashes.











The bright red buds of the Silver Maple.











A Silver Maple seen from afar.










The shaggy old bark of a Silver Maple.








The old bark of a Red Maple

Welcome

My name is Steve. I am, among other things, an arborist. What's that? In the technical sense it means I manage and maintain trees for a living. You know ... a tree "surgeon". I use quotes because becoming an actual surgeon requires many, many years of difficult and expensive education. In contrast, absolutely anyone can call themselves a tree surgeon. The term has no legal meaning and I wish it would vanish. I care for trees.

This is a blog about trees. More specifically, tree identification. It complements and extends a free service my company, Artisan Tree & Treehouse, runs for the local communities in and around Philadelphia. This blog's ultimate purposes are: to foster knowledge about trees; to be a focal point for our Philadelphia tree group; to expand my own knowledge of all things arboreal through mutual exchange.

My goal is for people to start paying attention to the magnificent trees of their surroundings. I bet there are trees that you have passed a thousand times without ever once stopping to really look. When a child asks an adult "What kind of tree is that?", I want them to have a ready answer.

I was getting a haircut recently and the coiffuse informed me that she recently had a bunch of trees cut down on her property. I asked her what kind of trees they were and she responded, "You know, the kind with leaves". Trees give us beauty, shade, food, lumber, shelter and inspiration. It's time we stopped cutting them down just because we don't want to rake. It's time we woke up and appreciated the wonderful green backdrops that whiz by our car windows every day. Ignorance of the natural world snowballs with each passing generation. It's time we stepped back and looked at some trees.