Post oak is a valuable source of wildlife food. The acorns are an important part of the diet of turkey, deer, and squirrels, of course. The leaves are used for nest building by birds, squirrels, and raccoons while cavities in the tree provide dens for birds and small mammals. Human uses include railroad ties, construction and mine timbers, flooring, fenceposts, veneer, and stair risers and treads. I wasn’t able to find whether there are any folk medicines derived from any portion of the post oak, though I wouldn’t doubt that there are some.

Another giveaway that it was a hawthorn shrub was the trunk of the tree, seen in this photograph. You can also see a couple more thorns on the twig at the center top:

The fruit of the hawthorn remains on the tree throughout the winter and is a critical source of food for wildlife in late winter, when food sources are scarce. The fruits are eaten by grouse, turkey, fox sparrows, and cedar waxwings. Deer, rabbits, and black bears, and raccoons also love the fruit.

As for human uses, the fruit of some species of hawthorn (the mayhaw) is used to make a very tasty jelly and the berry is said to be useful in treating high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and congestive heart failure.

Anyway, back to dogwoods – the tree is very distinctive and hard to mis-identify, at least from the bark. It has a very unusual bark that has been described as being “gray brown, dividing into small scaly blocks” (from the Virginia Department of Forestry guide to common native trees of Virginia). A perfect description, indeed! Unfortunately, the sole picture I took of the bark came out rather unfocused so I won’t post it. The leaf can be a bit confusing, if you go by the plant guides. Some guides say that the edges of the leaves are smooth or wavy while others say that the edges are finely serrated. Most say that the veins curve and parallel the edge of the leaf. At any rate, the leaf in this picture is finely serrated and is most assuredly a dogwood, because I carefully noted what kind of trunk the branch was attached to!

The Virginia Department of Forestry site has this to say about the white dogwood:

“The brown to red wood is hard, heavy, strong and very close-grained. It was once used for textile shuttles and spools and for handles and mallets, but is seldom harvested today. Although the fruits are poisonous if eaten by humans, more than 35 species of birds and many large and small mammals are known to eat them. Deer and rabbits browse the foliage and twigs. Dogwood is planted as an attractive ornamental tree.”

A fungus, dogwood anthracnose, infects the white dogwood, along with other varieties of the tree. Apparently, some populations of dogwood have adapted to the fungus, because I have a lot of healthy dogwood. But I did see several dogwoods, damaged by the construction of the driveway, which exhibited symptoms of the blight.

I bought my property because it is south-facing (I want to incorporate passive solar in my house design) and was told, early on, that the parcel would be drier and have less diversity than a north-facing parcel. As I identify the trees and shrubs on the property, I am continually amazed that the guides that I consult say that the trees I am finding grow best in rich, moist woodlands, typically north- or east- facing. Very interesting. It doesn’t hurt that the parcels on either side of mine are higher and thus drain into mine, but I’m also wondering if there isn’t a spring 10′ or more underground that is contributing moisture to the soil.

I took pictures of the spicebush (lindera benzoin) back in April, when it was blooming,

and now, in the early summer, it has unripe berries on it. In the fall, the berries will turn bright red – good food for birds. The leaves are browsed by deer and the plant is also the larval food of the spicebush swallowtail butterfly (papilo troilus). I saw quite a number of swallowtail butterflies in my travels, but didn’t see them in the woods – they were out in sunny places, feeding on nectaring plants.

The spicebush berries can be used as a substitute for allspice and are often added to apple dishes for a bit of zest since they ripen at the same time. The bark of the spicebush, prepared as a decoction, was used by the early settlers to activate the immune system and expel toxins by making the imbiber sweat heavily. The indigenous peoples used the plant for treating coughs and colds and compresses made from the leaf, bark or berries was used for treating rashes.

Note also the presence of the thin membranes on the sides of the central stalk. Presumably, it is called wingstem because of these “wings”.

I have this plant over a large percentage of my property and I really can’t figure out why. I walked on neighboring properties and there is little or none, so I don’t know if this plant is identifying soil pH or minerals or what. Here, it is growing in pretty dense shade – it gets about 4′ tall under these conditions:

Here is a patch of wingstem growing in full sunlight, where it can reach heights of 8′:

This particular area is one where the Bull Hog cleared out a patch of catbrier and multiflora rose one year ago. It is apparent to me that the wingstem plants were there all along, waiting for the briars and multiflora rose to be removed, for they sprang up like mushrooms!

The root of the wingstem is perennial – the stalk dies back each winter and the tuberous root sends up a new stalk in the Spring. In this picture, you can see the remains of the old stalk from last year immediately to the left of the new stalk this year:

I engaged Jason Rutledge, a biological woodsman, to do a forestry survey of my land last Spring. He ultimately decided that there wasn’t enough marketable timber on my property to justify his time, but he did make the observation that the lack of understory trees on my property was because of heavy deer browsing. After seeing the extent of the population of wingstem on my property, I think he was mistaken. I think the lack of an understory is due to the presence of the wingstem, for it shades out any new seedlings of canopy trees. In the areas where I don’t have much or any wingstem, there are numerous seedlings of different species, but where the wingstem is, all I have are a species of bedstraw and virginia knotweed. Using an herbicide to kill the wingstem is not an option – there is too much of it. My current thinking is that I will need to manually remove patches of wingstem and allow seedlings to establish themselves in those areas. Perhaps one day I will learn more about wingstem and the conditions it thrives under. If I can learn about that, I may be able to take some counter-measures to reduce the amount of the plant that I have on my land.

Update, 7/17/2010: After spending a substantial amount of time online doing research on this plant, I finally found a comprehensive account of the plant at the Illinois Wild Flowers site:

The plant’s “preference is full sun to light shade and moist to mesic conditions. Wingstem typically grows in fertile soil that is high in organic matter. … Habitats include moist prairies, moist meadows near rivers and woodlands, woodland openings, woodland borders, floodplain forests, areas adjacent to woodland paths, thickets, savannas, partially shaded seeps, partially shaded areas along rivers, pastures, abandoned fields and roadside ditches. The plant usually doesn’t wander far from woodland areas or bodies of water. The deciduous woodlands where this plant occurs often contain moisture-loving trees as American Sycamore, American Elm, Hackberry, and Silver Maple. Wingstem competes well against other plants in both high quality and disturbed habitats. … The caterpillars of the butterfly Cholsyne nycteis (Silvery Checkerspot) and Basilodes pepita (Gold Moth) feed on the foliage. Because of the bitterness of the leaves, Wingstem isn’t consumed by deer, rabbits, and other herbivores to the same extent as many other plants.”

This description fits my property to the proverbial “t” – I have a very large American Sycamore on the property and I may have Silver Maple, Hackberry and Elm – I haven’t identified those trees yet but now that I have been tipped off that they may be there, I’ll keep an eye out for them. It appears that my strategy of clearing small areas and then planting moisture loving trees will be the best way to reduce the population of wingstem on my property. Wingstem accurately maps the moist and mesic areas of my property – the drier areas do not support the plant. Very interesting. I would hazard a guess that the area of my property that some friends speculate are the remnants of the ancient Little River riverbed are too dry and too well-drained to support a population of Wingstem.

I have a lot of this plant, also, but I don’t believe that it is anywhere near the problem as the wingstem is. I observed a number of seedling trees growing amongst the jumpseed, probably because this plant doesn’t get very tall – I didn’t see any taller than about 12″. Thus, it does not shade out small seedlings and prevent them from growing as the wingstem does.

The wood is soft and light-colored (I used some in my second piece of sculpture) and the flowers produce abundant honey which commands a premium price. The inner bark was used by early settlers to make strips of material from which to weave baskets. The American Basswood is a large tree, growing as tall as 130 feet and as large as 48 inches in diameter at breast height. I’ll have to remember, next time, to take pictures of the bark of the tree to which the leaves are attached! Then I may be able to find bigger trees in my woods.

Parts of the plant are used in folk medicine in Central and South America. Various indigenous peoples use the leaves in different ways for dysentery, intestinal parasites, fevers, bruises, and tumors. I found an interesting website that lists the various uses, though I’m not sure that I’d try them without further study! Like I said in the last post – the things I learn by blogging! I had no idea that the plants in my yard could be used for such purposes. I doubt very much that medical professionals would approve of such uses – makes you wonder, doesn’t it? The fact that native peoples have used these plants for perhaps thousands of years only to be dismissed by modern science makes you stop and think, doesn’t it?

I suppose there are butterflies with long enough organs to reach into the tubes of the flower, but hummingbirds are the pollinator of choice, apparently.

The coral bean plant gets its name from the bright red beans inside the seed pod, from which the plant gets its name, according to what I’ve read. I don’t know how “coral” equates to “bright red”, though!

The subject of the last post, West Indian Lilac, had an unusual leaf and so does this plant. I’m sure someone somewhere can point out a similar leaf, but I’m not familiar with a plant that has a leaf similar to the coral bean:

Native American peoples, from the Cherokee and Choctaw to the Seminole, used various parts of the plant as a treatment for digestive disorders and in Mexico, the seeds are used for rat poison and the bark and leaves are used to kill fish.

Ahhhh … the things I learn by blogging!