Trees

 
Trees

Trees

I like the trees very much. This is something which is very unique. Trees cleaning the air, binds Co2 and makes oxygen out of it. Sounds cool. What is even more cool to plant a tree. The big thing for this you need a garden normally, if you plant a tree for yourself.

Lots of common trees coming soon. I will start with the most common ones, like maple, oak, plane, walnut, apple, pear, cherry, peach trees, and will continue with unique, rare ones.

How to identify trees

The first thing to look at is the leaves of the tree. Different trees has different shape leaves. Other things to see is the shape of the tree itself. Is the tree going upwards or wide direction ? The flowers and the crop of the tree is also can be useful in identification. Other things like the bole of the trees perhaps not as useful in identification, as many trees looks quite similar, but some species of trees has a unique bole appearance.

Each tree has lots of sub-species or hybrides, I concentrate on the basic types as a family of trees, except when some hybrides are interesting to plant in the garden.

Tree taxonomies

Trees has two major groups:

-Gymnosperms (Pines, Cypress and similar trees)
-Angiosperms (Hardwoods)

Popular trees in the city

Which are the most popular trees in the city parks ?

Common hackberry (Celtis occidentalis)

Trees Hackberry
Other names of the tree are common hackberry, American hackberry, nettletree, sugarberry, beaverwood, northern hackberry.

The Common hackberry is a very popular tree in city parks. The tree is originated in North America. The tree can grow to huge sizes, and not fragile to pollution. The tree trunk is very distinctive looking, at least where I live I don’t know other tree species with a similar look.

The edible crop of the tree is small of a size of a pea, similar to wild sour cherry. Actually I know not many people who eat it, at least where I live. The tree is famous about it attract huge number of birds, especially in winter. The Tree prefers bottomlands and soils with limestone. The tree can rise as height as 40m (130 feet) in idealistic conditions.

The tree also attract many butterflies, and serves as a host for butterfly larvae.

The tree material has a yellow color and it is not very hard.

Small leaved lime (Tilia cordata) tree

The small leaved lime tree is very popular in the Park of Budapest. The tree can grow to quite huge sizes, such as 1m bole diameter or 30m height. The tree strongly attract bees which can be beneficial for the other plants as well in the garden. In a small garden this huge tree is perhaps not so practical.

The tree doesn’t grow fast but can live as long as 2000 years. Are you kidding ? In the Westonbirt arboretum (near Bristol) a Small leaved lime tree estimated this old.

In Hungary in Nagycenk (West Hungary near Sopron) the famous Szechenyi family’s land a famous 20mm wide alley was planted from 460 Tilia trees. Each tree has a diameter around 1 meter. The trees was planted in 1754.

Walnut tree

The Walnut tree is one of my favorite. It is a huge tree compare to the other Fruit trees preferred by humans. Other such big tree is the Sweet chestnut tree.

The walnut tree has some distinct advantage over other Fruit trees. One it has a crop which lasts much longer. Under the tree not many plants survive which is nice, we don’t have to cut the grass so many times. It can be a disadvantage as well if we want to put something under the tree in our garden. There are some plants what we can plant under the Walnut tree as well.

The walnut tree doesn’t need as extensive care as many fruit trees like apple, or appricot.

The walnut is very healthy.

Sweet chestnut tree (Castanea sativa)

The sweet chestnut tree belongs the family of Fagaceae (Beech trees). This can be a huge tree, the height of the tree can be as high as 30m (90′).

Black Mulberry Morus nigra

Trees Black Mulberry Morus nigra
The Black Mulberry is widespread across Europe, originated from the Middle Asia. In Hungary it was very common, almost any farm there was a Black Mulberry tree. The tree can grow up to 12m height (39 feet) according to several sources, but I think it can be bigger as well. The fruits are good when they are black and soft in June July. The size of the dark fruits is 2-3cm (0.8-1.2″). Apart from birds, dogs also like the fruit of the tree.

Unfortunately the Fall webworm (Hypantria cunea) butterfly like the tree. This originally North American moth pest makes nets on trees and can eat the whole foliage in worst cases, this is why many Mulberry trees was cutted out in Hungary along the main roads. The color of the fruit is relatively hard to clean from the hands.

Morus alba
Poplar tree (Populus in latin)

trees black poplar
The Poplar on the picture is the black poplar, which is a bred type.

Poplar tree is also called Aspen or cottonwood.
The Poplar tree is one of the most common tree in Hungary. Mostly appear next to rivers, lakes and sandy areas. There are natural and artificial(modified) versions as well. The artificial version is very tall and has a slim look.

The poplar is very quickly growing, but don’t last very long. The tree can be as high as 50m (164 feet). In May the tree has a white cotton crop which most people don’t like. There are lots of forms but basically there are 6 main classes of these trees, depending on leave form and other characteristics. The diameter of the tree can be 1.5 meters or even more.

The poplar is a usual tree which Golden orioles often choses as a nest placement.

The reason is several types of caterpillars only appear on poplar, which is a basic diet of the Golden oriole.

For heating the Poplar is not very good.

Willow tree

trees willow tree
The willow tree also very common in Hungary. There are 600 different types of the willow trees in the World mostly on the Northern hemisphere. This tree mostly appear next to riverbeds or lakes, but some species can be found in more dry environment as well.

When the tree is young, it is quite quickly growing. The tree well bear pruning.

Unique rare trees

The tree can be unique in many ways: it is a unique specie, it has a unique size or shape, it has a unique location and others. The oldest trees on the Earth are more than thousand years old according to today’s knowledge, some of them are seveal thousand years old.

 Posted by at 2:54 pm