decorah envirothon - northeast iowa trees and their values

Northeast Iowa Trees and their Values

Northeast Iowa Trees and their Values

Trees give the land a lasting character as they grow

Oak trees, like this giant fanning Bur Oak tree, have tons of character

Bur oak trees look best when they can spread their limbs out wide, like out on the edge of the old prairie only the pioneers would have witnessed

Bur oaks have very thick corky bark for fending off those pesky prairie fires of the past

Bur oak limbs can be corky-looking too after leaf fall

Bur oak leaves have super-wide fat heads

Bur oak acorn caps have namesake furry burrs

Bur oak wood makes fine sturdy furniture

Unlike their furry Bur Oak cousins, White Oak acorns have hairless caps.

By the way, bur oak acorn and some white oak acorn meats can be eaten raw like peanuts.

All acorn flours, with some work, will make tasty bread.

White Oak trees are by far the best trees from a wildlife, and people perspective too.Notice the pale, scaly bark

White Oaks were certainly the smart choice for serving as Iowa’s scenic state tree

White oak wood made great wagon wheels for moving pioneer families across the plains

AWhite oak wood also made waterproof whiskey kegs

White oak’s tight wood grain breathes and is still used to give the whiskey or wine good taste.

White oak leaves have deep rounded lobes right to the top and turn a rusty orange tint in autumn

Representing another major oak group in Iowa, Red Oak leaves have bristle-tipped lobes and often turn a scorching scarlet in the fall.

By the way, red men shoot pointed arrows (Red Oaks) and white men shoot rounded bullets (White Oaks).

Young Red Oak trees showing off in the morning sun.

Large Red Oak tree trunks have deeply furrowed bark

Red oak trees flower in May, right along with all other oaks, about a dozen species found growing around Iowa.

Red oak acorns take two years to mature and are too full of bitter tannin to eat right from the tree, at least for persnickety people.

Many mammals like this deer, besides myriad birds and bugs eat those red oak acorns with relish though

Red oak trees make terrific firewood

Red oak trees add some winter color splashes as they often hold those burnt sienna leaves until spring.

Pin oak trees are picturesque runts in the red oak family

Pin oak trees are named for all the “pins” sticking out from those bigger branches.

Pin oak’s tough wood is great for barn-building timbersPin oak’s tough wood is great for barn-building timbers

Pin oak leaves are DEEPLY indented

Pin oak acorns are really cradled in their cups

Pin oak acorns are fox squirrel candy

In contrast, Black oak tree leaves have very shallow lobes

Black oak tree bark has a very high tannin content, and was collected a century ago when the trees were cut for lumber

Hides for leather clothes and boots were once tanned with black oak bark

Leather tanning factory from the 1800s

Look for Oak galls (oak apples) to be growing on any old oak tree

Oak galls were crushed to make a permanent black writing ink in the distant past

Shagbark hickory trees are another wonderful wildlife tree

Notice how the healthy bark peels off in big distinct plates

Woodland bats like to roost under those peeling hickory bark plates

Roosting evening bat

Shagbark hickory bud break in spring looks like an orchid explosion

Shagbark Hickory trees have compound leaves containing five to nine leaflets.

Shagbark hickory nuts form in summer and are encased in a four-part husk.Note the five- leaflet compound leaf

Shagbark hickory nuts, once husked, are super nutritious and delicious for all forest consumers

Shagbark hickory nuts ready to be cracked for treats

Shagbark hickory nut-spiced cookies

Shagbark hickory wood was used for tool handles before plastics came around since it’s so good at absorbing shock. Also great flavor for smoking meat

Shagbark hickories turn a pretty rusty gold in autumn

Pignut hickory leaves look similar to shagbark hickory, so look for another other ID clue

Pignut hickory bark is smooth and blue-gray, and never peels from the trunk

Pignut hickory nuts are mostly shell and contain little meat, disappointing for us but good for critters

For instance, Pioneers’ pigs grew fat foraging on pignut hickory nuts falling out in the pastured woods

Black walnut trees have distinctive dark boles (trunks)

Black walnut tree leaves are long and compound with a dozen or more leaflets

Young tender green black walnuts can be pickled in summer when still pierced with a pin

Black walnut leaves turn mustard yellow in early October

Black walnuts are a favorite food source for squirrels and other critters that can crack their hard shells

We can harvest and crack black walnuts for future use when they fall to the ground in October too

Black walnuts ready to be cracked open with a hammer.

Black walnut nutmeats are stuck inside little cells.

Black walnut nutmeats are a tasty topping and flavor condiment

Black walnut wood is highly prized for beautiful fine furniture pieces

Black walnut wood is the top choice for sporting gunstocks as it takes a super-smooth polish, and more importantly, the wood never warps

Butternut trees are sometimes called white walnuts. Notice the pale trunk color

Butternut leaves look a lot like walnut leaves

Butternuts though, are more cylindrical than walnuts. Those husks are also hairy and sticky

Butternuts taste great. They are very oily (buttery) and don’t keep as well as regular black walnuts.

Butternut wood has a beautiful grain and golden hue

Many old church alters were made with butternut wood

Butternut trees have disappeared across most of their range due to a fungus that causes a killing disease called Butternut Canker

Sugar maple trees rate near the top as a scenic tree

Sugar maple leaves turn yellow or orange in autumn and have that iconic “mapleleaf” shape

Sugar maple trees look superb out in local woods every autumn

Sugar maples also make wonderful landscape trees in town

At leaf fall, sugar maples carpet the ground with a golden glowing mat

Sugar maple trees are well-known for another, but hidden treasure too

Sugar maple tree trunks are tapped in early Spring

Forty gallons of sap can be cooked and condensed into one gallon of sweet maple syrup.

Besides fine fall color and maple syrup, maple trees make a wood that can’t be beat for gym floors & fiddles

Sugar maple flooring

Sometimes sugar maple wood gets spotted blemishes that are actually highly prized by furniture makers

Red maple trees are a rarer, slightly smaller cousin of the well-known sugar maple

Red maple leaves always turn brilliant red in autumn

Red maple wood makes the world’s finest musical instruments, such as a Stradivarius

Red maple wood grain sometimes rollercoasters and creates a gorgeous rare shimmering tiger stripe pattern

Black maple is another little-known cousin of the sugar maple, with broader leaves and amber foliage in the autumn woods

Silver maples are a “soft” variety of maple with relatively brittle branches

Silver maple leaves are deeply indented and turn topaz yellow rather late in the season – often November

Silver maples are fast growing and often planted in groves and yards –but they are also short-lived

Silver maples are at their best growing in a fertile floodplain forest

A walk through a silver maple stand in autumn on a sunny day can be spectacular

Silver maples simmering on the Mississippi

Silver maple leaf drop on a floodplain forest floor

“Autumn Blaze” is a manmade cross between Red and Silver Maple trees, giving the color and durability of Red Maple along with the faster growth found in Silver Maples.

I’m still skeptical about the tree’s strength in a strong storm.

Boxelder trees are also called ash-leaved maples. Notice the seed keys that spin like helicopter rotors

Boxelders are weedy colonizing trees – good for kids to climb but not much else

Boxelder fall color is less than stellar.

Basswood tree saplings have a smooth thin pale gray bark

Bigger basswood trees have a habit of clumping at their base

Basswood leaves are among the biggest in Iowa

Basswood leaves turn ochre yellow early in autumn

Basswood trees flower in mid-summer.

Honeybees make a delectable honey from their flowers

Besides honey, Basswood trees provide woodworkers with a soft grainless wood – a carver’s delight

Catalpa trees are uncommon and under- appreciated as they can look quite striking in springtime

Big white flower bundles bloom from Catalpa tree branches in early June

When catalpa flower petals fall they look like summer snowflakes on the ground

Catalpa leaves are huge, almost big as elephant ears!

Catalpa trees produce long green bean pods in early autumn.

Catalpa seed pods stay on the tree all winter long

Catalpa wood is featureless and fine for picture frames

Down south, fishermen beat “Catawba worms” from the trees with long poles – Catalpa sphinx moth caterpillar.

Catalpa sphinx moth

Cottonwood trees rank among the state’s tallest individuals

Cottonwoods are the fastest growing trees in Iowa – up to 6 feet per year

In springtime, cottonwood catkins look like big fat red worms

Cottonwood leaves are tough and leathery and rattle around in the hot summer breeze

Cottonwood leaves end up an awesome copper color in a good year

By the way, big old cottonwoods are no problem when growing wild out in a soybean field

Cottonwood cotton “seeds” can make a real mess around the tidy town house though

Cottonwood groves were favorite places for venturesome pioneers to camp for the night

Besides providing the night’s firewood, early travelers on the plains carved Cottonwood trunks into canoes for crossing the mighty Missouri River

Today, Cottonwood trunks can be cut up to construct many fine shipping pallets

Bigtooth aspen is a woodland cousin of the cottonwood. Note the scalloped straw-colored leaves.

Bigtooth aspens are rather short-lived straight-trunked trees out in the woods

Pileated woodpeckers like to drill their homes into that soft punky bigtooth aspen wood

Quaking aspen is another common type in the large “poplar” clan

Quaking aspen leaves have slender petioles and quiver in even the slightest breeze

Quaking aspens have been called the second-largest organisms on earth. All trees in that clump are clones from one original individual

Quaking aspens or “quakies” turn hillsides a striking bright gold in autumn

Quaking aspens or “quakies” turn hillsides a striking bright saffron in autumn

Light-barked quaking aspen trees, seen here in the winter woods, can be confused with another white-barked tree.

White birch, formerly called the “canoe birch”, bark peels easily from the trunk.

Northern Indians sewed and glued white birch bark strips together to fashion their famous birch bark canoes canoes

White birch bark also makes a wonderful camping tinder – burns even when wet

White birch is most common in cold northern climates

Here in Iowa, white birch is usually found in association with algific (cold air) slopes

White birch wood is rather hard and scentless and makes great turned salad bowls

Most white birch wood gets turned into pulp for writing paper though

White birch trees are ornamental in the woods as well as in the front yard

Birch (and quaking aspen) buds are vital visible and sustaining wildlife foods in winter

Handsome Ruffed Grouse feed heavily on those tasty nutritious buds

White birch trees can be quite picturesque even in winter’s desolate season

River birch grows along waterways in soggy ground – the bark peels back in small plates that look like pasted potato chips

River birch trees turn golden brown along select riverbanks in October

Black willow trees also grow right alongside creeks and rivers out in the countryside

Willow leaves are simply long and skinny

Many smaller species like this sandbar willow can also be found growing in wet areas around Iowa

Willow leaves turn a sunshiny sulpher yellow in autumn

Beavers like to eat the soft tender sweet tasty wetland willow twigs

Willow bats give stressed wildlife some good winter cover

Willow wood is soft and brittle but makes fine excelsior for stuffing material

Willow wood is also used for making that messy charcoal

American elm trees are shaped like flowing spouting fountains at maturity

American elm trees with their fountainhead forms were once planted in communities all across this country

American elm leaves are noticeably toothed and very rough

American Elm leaves take on a lemon yellow tint in autumn.

Revolutionary War Era rocking chair rockers were often crafted from tough American elm wood

American elm was also the wood of choice for Revolutionary War battleships because it would not split apart when hit with British cannonballs

Today, most American elms die at about this size, due to Dutch Elm Disease

Burrowing bark beetles carry a fungus brought from Europe that clogs those vessels charged with moving water and nutrients throughout the tree

Woodpeckers, like this Downy, benefit from the American Elm’s demise by gaining both bark beetle food bits and plenty of punky shelter.

Morel mushroom hunters also benefit from a dying American elm tree.

Red elm trees are a plainer cousin of those esteemed American elms

Adult Red elms are sometimes known as Slippery elms

Red elms are called “Slippery” elms for good reason. Sly pitchers chew the muciloginous inner bark to make their notorious “spitballs”

Red elm wood is usually cut up to make common crates

Hackberry trees like to live in this lowland habitat

Hackberry leaves look a lot like elm leaves, without the rough backing

Hackberry bark has a very very rough texture

Hackberry tree bark can best be described as “warty”

Hackberry is also known as the Sugarberry, for the sweet purple fruits that form in the fall

Black cherry trees also make a purple fruit early in the fall

Black Cherry trees blossom in May

Black cherry tree leaves typically turn orange in October.

Black Cherry tree bark looks scaly like a snakeskin

Black Cherry wood is chosen for classy wood caskets

Mulberries make another tasty tree berry treat. This is the native Red Mulberry Tree

Mulberry trees are rather small and somewhat weedy

Mulberry leaves are variable in shape, but some usually look lobed like gloves or mittens

Red Mulberries are usually purple-ripe about the beginning of July

Honey locust trees have delicate-looking white flowers blooming in the spring

Honey locust’s tiny compound leaves help give the tree a light airy appearance as well

Honey locust leaves have many small rounded leaflets spreading on the stem

Honey locust trees have flaxen foliage in autumn

Honey locust wood is hard and resistant to rot and makes great lasting fence posts

Honey locust trees produce problematic messy pods for the fussy homeowner

“Wild” honey locust tree trunks sport long sharp dangerous spines

Black Locust tree trunks have shorter spikes sticking out

Black locust trees have pretty flower bouquets in early June

Black locust leaves look a lot like honey locust leaves

Black locust trees can become invasive, spreading out by long runners reaching up from underground

Seeds from their pealike pods can also spread black locust trees around

Black locust tree wood is very dense and planted on purpose in the past for splitting the best-burning firewood

White ash is a common canopy tree in wetter woodlands

White ash trees typically grow tall and straight

White ash bark is deeply cut into myriad diamond patterns. Notice the seeds, which are sometimes called ‘bird tongue” keys

White ash leaves are made of many copycat leaflets

White ash wood is the only wood used for the famous Louisville Slugger baseball bats.White ash is also great for snowshoes and canoe paddles because it is not only very strong, but also very light.

Green ash is a less desirable cousin of the white ash often planted in yards because it grows fast and was once thought to be disease-free (before Emerald Ash borer arrived).

All four ash trees in Iowa, including the rare black and blue species, have compound leaves that turn primrose yellow in autumn – a single leaf shown here.

Several green ash trees glowing out in the autumn woods.

Kentucky coffee tree is a rare riverbottom species. Woody pods develop during the summer

Kentucky coffee tree branches look a little bulky for their comparative size

Kentucky coffee tree leaves are doubly compound

Kentucky coffee tree pods contain one to four seeds surrounded by a fleshy green paste

Kentucky coffee tree seeds can be roasted and ground into a decent cup of coffee

Kentucky coffee tree seeds are smooth and round and make excellent slingshot ammo

Ironwood trees are considered an understory tree because of their small size compared to canopy trees like oaks.Sometimes those big decorative bumps will bulge from their trunks.

Ironwood tree bark looks like it was used as a giant cat-scratching post

Ironwood trees develop little dangling catkins in the spring season

Ironwood catkins form papery pods in late summer. They look like hops, hence the Hop Hornbeam name

AH

Ironwood leaves are simple and slightly toothed

Ironwood leaves turn a transitory aureolin in autumn.

Ironwood trees get their name from the hard dense wood they form. Pioneers used that “iron” wood to make gears that could take a lot of abuse without breaking.

Ironwood cogs once powered that wheel around and around for years on end

American hornbeam is closely related to ironwood, and is an uncommon understory tree. Also known as the Blue Beech because the bark is very smooth (like a beech) and bluish gray.

Another name for the American Hornbeam is Musclewood, because the trunks are usually fluted and look like blood vessels that are bulging out from a flexed muscle.

American hornbeam is just as tough as ironwood and was used to make yokes for oxen teams, as it was guaranteed to keep the big bulky beasts in check.

American hornbeam held the oxen together right behind the horns.

Trees add untold benefits to us and the world around us all year long, whether the season be summer

Or winter. What a wonderful sight.