Tag Archives: Durham Creek Week

The elms are flowering

This is an article I wrote for the February issue of the Parkwood Inside/Out. We are planning trash cleanups on March 28th and a hike, and will be participating in the costume parade downtown on March 21st and other events for Durham Creek Week 2015. Check this website for announcements and all events will also be posted at:

Creek Week Events

Parkwood’s elms are blooming

Red maples dotting the still bare landscape with blots of crimson are one of the first signs that spring is here, but elms are among the first trees to flower. These prominent trees might be less appreciated because an elm in flower is stormy grey or lime green. Winged elms are the most common species, especially in central Parkwood, but there are slippery elms along the streams and probably American elms, and there are scattered Eurasian ornamentals. The most prominent and beautiful elm I know of in the area is the classically fountain-shaped tree on Highway 54, across from . Because its limbs are all high above the ground, it is hard to identify the species.

Elms, especially American elms, are beloved for the fountain or vaselike shape of mature trees, and there is a graceful symmetry to elms generally. Their leaves and branches alternate, creating an airy lattice effect. The straight veins in their oval leaves, double toothed like a pruning saw, are straight and parallel, but elms also have a very unsymmetric feature – the leaf bases are lopsided, especially in American and slippery elms. Elms have thin, elegant branches, strengthened by very tough wood, and the bark of some species can be twisted into rope. They produce wind pollinated bisexual flowers in early spring, developing into small seeds with a circular flange that drift with the wind several weeks later. The elms generally like moist soil, but winged elms seem to grow in drier soil as well.

The massive, spreading elm in front of Carrboro’s Town Hall could be an American elm (it is big enough for a plaque, yet nothing identifies the species), and I think there are labelled American elms in the Coker Arboretum at UNC. American or white elms are around, but are less common after the arrival of Dutch Elm Disease, a fungus that came to the US around 1930, and is spread by introduced and native beetles that bore in elms. Many elms have been killed, especially American elms, but this seems to be a little less catastrophic than the introduction of chestnut blight and emerald ash borer beetles, and the disease can be managed. American elms are large trees with furrowed bark, brownish leaf buds, and their leaves and stems aren’t very hairy, or less so than slippery elms. Their seeds have some hairiness, while the seeds of slippery elms lack hairs. Both American and slippery elms have large, sandpaperlike leaves, but American elms have greenish flowers, unlike slippery elms. Because their wood is so strong and resistant to splitting, and grips screws tightly, American elms have been used to make things like sports equipment, boats, flooring, crates, and kitchen cutting blocks. Many were planted for landscaping in the northeast, though they grow throughout the eastern USA. In A Natural History of Trees, botanist and nature writer Donald Culross Peattie wrote “If you want to be recalled for something that you do, you will be well advised to do it under an [American] Elm – a great Elm, for such a tree outlives the generations of men; the burning issues of today are the ashes of tomorrow, but a noble Elm is a verity that does not change with time. And although Elms too are mortal, great ones are remembered as long after they are gone as are great men.”

Slippery elms are similar to American elms, but smaller and less vaselike. They have been called red elms, having hairy, reddish leaf buds and reddish flowers, as well as hairy twigs. Their inner bark is slippery and becomes mucouslike when chewed. This inner bark was used to make tea and flour and was used for a variety of internal and external problems and still has an FDA approved medical use. American elm bark was used medicinally by Native American groups.

Winged elms are named for the cork flanges that line their twigs to varying degrees. Sweetgums usually aren’t as winged as elms and their leaves are very different. Winged elms leaves are smaller, smoother, and more symmetrical than those of other elms, and large trees have light brown bark. I think these are the first elms to flower, with brownish flowers that turn into silvery, hairy seeds. As with most trees, winged elms grow a lot when they first leaf out in spring, delicately etched leaves surging forth from the twig tips at a fast clip. The tiny, silky looking new leaves hang as if limp, but are actually strangely stiff. Snow, ice, and maybe hurricanes smashed many of the spindly young loblollies behind the Fire Station around 2002, leaving winged elms, ash, and a few surviving pines as the dominant tall trees, to be replaced themselves by oaks, hickories, and beech in coming decades.

Many animals chew on elm branches, leaves, and seeds, including opossums, rabbits, and bobwhites. The caterpillars that fed on elms are like a who’s who of moths and butterflies, including many of the moths you might see at your porchlights this spring. Double-toothed prominent moth caterpillars feed only on elms. They bite into a leaf and then rest there, so their jagged backs appear like the missing leaf edge. It is surprising that this camouflage works, since elm leaves are emerald green, but the caterpillars are pale seafoam blue and green.

The life and death of an ash tree

Our next meeting will be Sunday, January 26th at 4pm, to plan for Creek Week 2014 (March 15-22) and discuss some development issues, etc. Contact us for the address of the residence where we are meeting.

Below is an expanded version of an article I wrote for the January issue of the Parkwood Inside/Out. This giant ash tree grows beside the stream that flows from the corner of Barbee and 54, through Parkwood to NE Creek at the bridge on Grandale Road.

The life and death of an ash tree

An ash tree in Parkwood is one the largest I have come across. There are taller trees, but this ash is nearly four feet across, beating large ash in the wild bottomlands around NE Creek and the big ash in downtown Chapel Hill. Parkwood’s ash is a little south of McCormick Road, near the intersection with Auburndale, beside the stream in the common green area, and can be seen from the road. Ash trees usually have very straight trunks, but this giant leans southwest and has lost huge limbs to the force of wind or ice over its long life. It is hard to say why it leans. That section of woods is relatively young and this ash is the biggest tree there. It has pale bark, and as a reaction to tilting, it grows more on the leaning side, producing unusually deep 4” furrows, resembling a baleen whale’s throat or treads. In one place the bark is brown, probably from deer rubbing the velvet off their antlers. There are rows of holes created by yellow-bellied sapsuckers, woodpeckers that winter here and tap trees for sap.

During the growing season, the ash’s massive trunk is obscured by understory oaks, dogwoods, and black cherries. American beech, increasingly common in Parkwood, and Northern red oak saplings wait for the ash to fall. This is the only spot I know of where pawpaws grow inside Parkwood, though they are quite common as small riparian trees along NE Creek. The pawpaws probably would benefit from more light, though the site might still be a bit dry for them to produce their sweet bananalike fruit. There is a seemingly innocent sprig of English ivy, a plant which is taking over in nearby sections of the woods, and a Nandina bush with purple foliage, another non-native, but much less invasive. Partridgeberry, ‘wild onions,’ and grape ferns form the herb layer under the ash.

Each ash produces only male or female flowers, and this must be a male tree. Perhaps it is a parent of large ash on nearby Timmons Drive, or even throughout the area.

Our ash is probably a white ash. Green, pumpkin, and Carolina ash also grow in Durham. They look similar, all living up to their scientific name, Fraxinus, the Latin name for ash, which also means spear, and describes their typical soaring shape. Ash have leaves and twigs growing in pairs along a stem, and their pinnately compound leaves are made up of oval leaflets, resembling the leaves of walnuts, hickories, and locusts. In fall ash turn gold, orange, and purple. Ash saplings have smooth gray bark and mature trees have somewhat furrowed or rough bark, depending on the species.

White ash is the most economically valuable ash. High-quality baseball bats are made from white ash, as well as other objects requiring lightweight, strong wood with a spring, like oars, lacrosse sticks, musical instruments, furniture, and bowling lanes. It is also an easy to split, hot burning firewood. White ash has been used to relieve fevers, sores, and snake bites, as a laxative, and as an aphrodisiac, among other medicinal uses. Ash have a long history in mythology, for example the Norse axis mundi/world tree Yggdrasil is supposed to have been an ash, and according to folklore snakes don’t like ash trees. White ash likes well-drained, but not very dry soil and is one of the first trees to sprout in abandoned fields. White and green ash can tolerate shade as seedlings, waiting for their chance to shoot into the canopy when an old tree dies. The big snowstorm that left two feet of snow and ice and other bouts of freezing rain have knocked down most of the young pines behind the Parkwood Volunteer Fire Station, leaving a woods of only ash and winged elm in places. Pumpkin and Carolina ash like wet habitats, and ash are one of the main trees in swamps and bottomlands. Ash trees can be seen next to the Parkwood Association office, where there used to be a trailer, and at the Parkwood Convenience Store, at the corner of Seaton and Revere. Ash of some kind can be found on most streets in Parkwood and are common throughout the Triangle.

Late last summer I watched big pale green, red, and yellow hornworms on an ash sapling at Falls Lake. These were waved sphinx moth caterpillars, but the red markings were unusual. Usually their larvae don’t have any red coloration, but these were mostly red with yellow markings when small and then mostly green, but with red heads, horns, and markings. A few other sphinxes feed on ash, as do caterpillars of black and yellow Eastern tiger swallowtails. These green caterpillars have fake eyes complete with angry eyebrows, to mimic snakes, and if that fails, they can send out bright orange ‘horns’ that emit a smelly fluid. The big, shiny black rhinoceros or unicorn beetles sometimes found under streetlights at the Parkwood Shopping Center also eat ash. Ash have wind-pollinated flowers in early spring, but honeybees and other insects sometimes harvest pollen from male flowers. The winged seeds, or keys, of ash trees are eaten by weevils, mice, and birds such as wood ducks, turkeys, and purple finches. Large ash often have hollows where birds and squirrels can nest. Our ash seems to house a colony of big black ants, judging from the seemingly arboreal ants walking along its trunk last summer. Deer and rabbits eat the leaves while beavers like ash bark. Ash growing around the beaver impoundments on Grandale or elsewhere could host mistletoe.

Native beetles and two species of dayflying moth that mimic wasps bore into living or dead ash trees, but a new ash-boring beetle from East Asia is on its way to killing virtually all ash. Emerald ash borer or EAB reached Michigan in the 90’s, probably in shipping materials. It wasn’t noticed until 2002 and has since spread throughout the Eastern US and Canada, in part because people violated quarantines on firewood and other products. Their grubs tunnel under the bark of trees as small as 1” across, and since these are non-native animals, they come in out of control numbers that girdle our naïve ash, killing them within a few years of colonization. A good online resource to check out is www.emeraldashborer.info .

Earlier this summer emerald ash borers crossed into Granville County from a pocket across the border in Virginia and a quarantine was imposed (see http://www.ncforestservice.gov/forest_health/fh_eabfaq.htm ). This is likely to be the end for Parkwood’s great ash in the near future, when the emerald ash borer gets to Durham, on its own power or by hitching a ride, and a great many beetles could come from it. There is cause for hope – some ash seem to have survived the borer up north, introduced Asian and native parasitoid wasps could help control the beetle, and individual trees can be protected with insecticides that are relatively safe for the environment. Emerald ash borer has a big ecological and economic impact, and even harms human health, so communities in the Triangle should prepare.

You can read more about emerald ash borer in my article in the February issue of Carolina Gardener magazine (www.carolinagardener.com).

Events for Durham Creek Week

Durham Creek Week is coming up ( www.durhamcreekweek.org), and there are two events in the Northeast Creek area.

Evening nature hike

Join Northeast Creek Stream Watch for an evening nature hike to see spring wildflowers, singing frogs and toads, and possibly beavers Monday, March 18th at 6pm, starting at the Audubon Park pool (corner of Whisperwood Drive and Solitude Way in southern Durham) and heading towards Parkwood Elementary School.

Northeast Creek trash cleanup

South Durham Green Neighbors (www.sdgn.net), NECSW, and the City/County of Durham are organizing a trash cleanup along the Creek Saturday, March 16th, 9am-12. Parking is available at the intersection of Custer Circle and Euclid Road in the Parkwood neighborhood. Supplies will be provided, but wheelbarrows and wagons would be helpful to get trash out to the road for pickup.