The first, the Shingle Oak (Quercus imbricaria), is the least oaky of all the oaks. It has simple pinnate leaves that are long and oval like a laurel's leaves. The species name imbricaria comes from the Latin word meaning overlapping. Why? Early white settlers used the wood from this tree to make overlapping shingles for the roofs of their houses. We still call it the Shingle Oak today.
I've seen several American Sycamores (Platanus occidentalis) growing in my neighborhood. Don't get it twisted. When Europeans talk about Sycamores, they mean the Scottish Maple (Acer pseudoplatanus). See the Scientific name? It means fake sycamore. Only American Sycamore are real sycamores. If you read the word sycamore in the Bible, the writer meant neither the Sycamore nor the Maple, he meant the fig tree (Ficus carica). When Jesus curses the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14), he's cursing a sykon (the Greek word for fig).
For some reason, we call the American Sycamore by a name derived from the Greek for fig (sykon) and mulberry (morus). It's a complete mess and no one knows how this happened. It has simple palmate leaves very similar to the maple leaf, only with three lobes, and huge.
There's more. We also get the word sycophant from the sykon. Ancient Greek politicians refrained from openly taunting each other in public. Instead, they had mobs of lackeys and brown-nosers to do the taunting for them. Sycophant come from sykon and phaino, meaning "I show." And show the fig they did. Showing the fig was the Greek version of flipping the bird. Make a fist. stick your thumb between two fingers. That's it. Only, it's not exactly like flipping the bird, you see. Sykon was also slang for, well, "lady parts."
The early settlers called the Sycamore by the name Buttonwood. A particularly large one grew at the end of Wall Street back when New York City still had trees. In 1792, a group of wealthy investors signed the Buttonwood Agreement under the tree, forming the New York Stock Exchange.
This next one is fun. The White Willow (Salix alba) has an interesting history. Hippocrates (of Hippocratic Oath fame) used the bark of this tree to ease pain. He got the idea from the Ancient Egyptians. The very reverend Edmund Stone, an English clergyman, discovered in 1763 that if he mixed willow bark with alcohol, the resulting beverage would reduce fever. In the 1820s, two chemists isolated the magic chemical from willow bark, salicylic acid.
You'll find salicylic acid listed as an ingredient in wart, acne, and other skin medications. It's also one of the major components of aspirin. The aspirin molecule is basically a salicylic acid molecule fused with an acetic acid molecule. Everyone knows acetic acid. Cooks call it vinegar.
In fact, over time, aspirin decomposes into salicylic acid and vinegar. Don't believe me? Go take a deep whiff of your aspirin bottle. This also works for ibuprofen since it's almost identical to aspirin chemically.
I assume you noticed the clever trick of naming salicylic acid after the salix tree. But, you may ask, what is this alba? Albus is the Latin word for white. Remember the White Oak, Quercus alba? When we hang white seabirds from our necks, we call them albatrosses. People used to put photographs on the white, blank page of an album. You can make a sandwich with the white meat of an albacore tuna. And we call someone with no skin pigment an albino.
When it gets really old, the White Willow tends to droop. Just like the rest of us. It looks like the true Weeping Willow (Salix babylonica). The willow is a notoriously promiscuous tree and forms hybrids with other any other willow it can find. What we call a Weeping Willow in the US is actually a hybrid between the White Willow and true Weeping Willow. We have some on Boulware:
The Weeping Willow gives us another fun naming story.
Carl Linnaeus invented binomial nomenclature, the practice of using scientific names derived from Latin or Greek to classify living things. We use only the genus and the species and get names like Salix babylonica (and if you're curious, the first one is always capitalized, the second always lowercase, both always italic). Carl liked using Latin and Greek names so much, he changed his Swedish last name Linne to Linnaeus to sound more sciency. What a jerk.
He also made a mess of the Weeping Willow's scientific name. When he came up with Salix babylonica, he took the name from Psalm 137 (specifically verses 1-2):
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.In the Vulgate Latin, the verses use a form of salix, the Latin name for willow. So, in the King James Version (above), you get willow. Here's the problem: when Pope Clement ordered a Latin translation of the Bible, his guys got it wrong. They translated the Hebrew word gharab as willow. Gharab really means poplar. Oops. More recent English translations like NIV and NLT use the word poplar.
http://bible.cc/psalms/137-2.htm
The harp hanging Hebrews of Psalm 137 were actually talking about the Euphrates Poplar (Populus euphratica):
http://www.flowersinisrael.com/Populuseuphratica_page.htm
http://www.inmagine.com/searchterms/euphrates_poplar.html
Parting Shot
This is happy news for some, sad for others. This is probably my last tree post of the season. Maybe forever. I'm running out of trees. I mean, there are some odd elms and a few trees I still haven't identified, but you've seen most of what Illinois has to offer. Also, winter is coming. When the Spring comes around, I have a feeling the Tree Review posts will be replaced with Bird Watching posts.
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