The books and websites about Illinois trees very nearly give me an ulcer. In their academic zeal to create a comprehensive encyclopedia of local trees, they don't give you an accurate sense of Tree Demographics. I find they tend to include every tree that has ever grown in any part of Illinois in any number. Here's the truth: about 80% of the tree population in this town consists of Maples, Oaks, Norway Spruces, Blue Spruces, and Eastern White Pines. Everything else I post can be squeezed into the other 20%.
More of the Same
Since we left off with Oaks, last time, I'll add one more the to list. The Pin Oak (Quercus palustris) has simple pinnate leaves with pointed lobes, like our Red Oak, but deeper cuts between the lobes. These leaves look a little wilted, but they give you the idea.
The Native Americans made a drink from the bark of the Pin Oak that they used to alleviate intestinal pain. Today, we use wood from the Pin Oak for railroad ties and firewood.
But where did we get the name, Pin Oak? In many wooden constructions, builders preferred wooden pins, called treenails or trunnels, especially in cases where a nail can rust and accelerate the decay of the wood around it. Boats and bridges. Vikings fastened the planks of their ships with trunnels. When the pin gets wet, it expands and forms a tighter bond. In America, houses built before the 1840s often utilized square trunnels, malleted into circular slots. That's where we get the phrase, square peg in a round hole. Many covered bridges in the US used trunnels as late as the First World War, some still in use. Since the Pin Oak has such hard, compact wood, builders often used it as a source of trunnels, or wooden pins, and came to call it the Pin Oak. Now you know the Paul Harvey part of the story.
I originally snapped a photo of this next tree just because it looked so weird. I thought, what kind of pine tree grows like that? Well, the Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris) does, I learned.
The Scots Pine (or Scotch Pine) comes in two varieties, the Northern European, which grows straight and tall, and the Southern European, which grows in all sorts of absurd shapes. When the British wanted to start planting these in the New World, they accidentally brought the wrong seeds. This Southern European Scots Pine grows straight and conical as a young tree, but then sort of wanders through the air as it ages. It's one of the most numerous cultivated pines in the US, making up 30% of the Christmas trees sold every year. The sap is also used to make the rosin for violin bows. In the good ole days, folks used Scots Pine sap to make Pine Tar. When you read about mobs Tar and Feathering unpopular individuals and riding them out on a rail, they used Pine Tar, rather than the Petroleum Tar we use today. Pine Tar liquifies at room temperature, so often it just made victims really sticky. A particularly vindictive mob would heat the tar, scalding and blistering the victim, though this was probably the exception rather than the rule.
Also, it's the national tree of Scotland. My wife is half Scottish. She doesn't get as excited about this tree as I do, though.
You can tell the difference between the Scots Pine and the Eastern White Pine in three ways:
- The unusual shape.
- Flat needles that grow in pairs (EWPs have round needles that grow in bunches of 3 to 5).
- Darker foliage with a coarser look from a distance (EWPs just look softer; you want to give them a hug).
The other popular Christmas tree species, the Douglas Fir, (Pseudotsuga menziesii) has given botanists fits for centuries. It looks like a spruce (Picea). It has flat needles like a fir (Abies). Botanists decided it sort of reminded them of a hemlock (Tsuga), but not quite. So they gave the Douglas its own genus, Pseudotsuga, which means Fake Hemlock.
The species name (menziesii) comes from the Scottish physician who discovered this tree, Archibald Menzies. Sadly, and this happens often in science and in history, the common name of this tree comes from his archenemy and rival botanist, David Douglas.
The Hawaiians built canoes from Douglas Fir trunks that floated over from California. Apparently, this occurred frequently. A movement in the NorthWest called the Cascadia Independence Movement uses the Douglas Fir on their flag, which they call the Doug Flag. Cascadians think that Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia should break away from the US and Canada and form a separate nation. The nation would be about the size of Mongolia with a larger economy than Egypt or Colombia. Its similar to the Chicano movement to create the Aztlan Republic from most of the Southwestern states.
Now Something Completely Different
My favorite tree right now is probably the Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua). It has simple palmate leaves with five pointed lobes. They look sort of like Tree Stars from Land Before Time. Fossils of this tree date back to 20 million years ago, the Miocene era. Not old enough for Littlefoot, but still pretty old.
Native Americans and early settlers would chew on the sweet sap. That's why it's called a Sweetgum. Medicinally, it has been used to cure Diarrhea, Gonorrhea, and Ringworm. The Pullman company (based in Chicago and responsible for Labor Day) used Sweetgum wood for the interior finish of Pullman cars.
I'd also like to point out the genus: Liquidambar. It looks just like the words liquid amber. The sap has sort of an amber hue and it's liquid. The scientists got lazy on this one. The species name, styraciflua, comes from the sap as well. The sap contains a chemical used in the early production of polystyrene and Styrofoam.
The Parting Shot
Chew on this. The spiky fruit of the Sweetgum tree is called a Gumball.
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