BLOG RERUN: Dr. Jane Bowles, a great botanist, friend and mentor

This blog post was originally posted on July 30th, 2013 in memory of Dr. Jane Bowles, the Herbarium Curator and Director of the Arboretum at Western University in London, Ontario. There are very few weeks that go by that I don't think of Jane, and I've even caught myself thinking "I have no idea what this plant is; I'll ask Jane when she gets back" like she's only out for coffee or something. Gone too fast and too young; I don't think I'm alone when I say she is dearly missed.

Species name: Acacia tortilis

Common name: umbrella acacia, Israeli babool (in Swahili: mgunga, mugumba or munga)

Location: all photos from Dave's Garden (photo 1 by DMersh, photo 2 by DMersh, and photo 3 by palmbob)

You might be wondering why I'm featuring this plant in my blog today; for a full explanation you can scroll down to the bottom of this blog post past the next plant profile. Umbrella acacia trees are probably one of the first plants that come to mind when you think of Africa. They are for me at least! They have an enormous native range, reaching from the north all the way to the south of Africa and into the Middle East. When I think of the African savannah, this is by far the first tree (and sometimes the only tree; I'll be the first to admit that my African botany knowledge is quite limited!) that comes to mind.

The umbrella acacia actually looks rarely like an umbrella when grown in cultivation. Because it is so extremely drought tolerant, it is often grown in climates where the type of ecosystem that prevails for most of the year is a dry, sandy desert. Here, the umbrella acacia looks more like an acacia with a bad hair day, and is very straggly and wiry. It is only when the young seedlings are exposed to large amounts of rain that the trees end up developing into the typical umbrella-shape that is so characteristic of the African savannah. That, and grazing animals that force the tree into that shape couldn't hurt; this tree is one of the preferred food sources of giraffes. The "umbrella" of the canopy begins where the branches are just out of reach from the giraffes and everything below that point is eaten away. That's not the only animal that eats the umbrella acacia: humans have also used this tree as a source of gum arabic (added to many, many food items), and the seed pods are used for various herbal medicines. The seeds may be eaten by humans but are rich in tannins so are usually avoided (but may be used as a source of natural dye instead!), however other grazing animals like small mammals or birds eat these seeds as a rich (and rare) source of protein and fat.

There are quite a few products made from the wood of this tree, and is one of the reasons why it is grown so much in cultivation in Africa and the Middle East. The wood is very important for fine woodworking products like wagon wheels and furniture, as well as raw lumber for fenceposts and animal pens. The tabernacle, built by Israelites in the Old Testament, was also exclusively built from wood of the umbrella acacia so it has important religious significance as well. It also has very high significance to more than 20 different groups of people (either groups defined by language, linguistic dialects, country lines, or cultural beliefs), but the most important of which for the purposes of this blog post is that it's the National Tree of Kenya.

Species name: Stylophorum diphyllum

Common name: wood poppy, Celandine poppy

Location: Dave's Garden -- DaylilySLP

I think this is probably the only critically endangered wildflower species that I've ever personally seen in Ontario. When I saw it I didn't realize what it was or how important it was, so I didn't bother photographing it despite having my camera with me. Next time! There are only three populations in Ontario, which is the most northern part of its native range (which extends into the United States and is still quite limited; it is now only a small fragment of what it used to be), ranging in population size from 42 individual plants to about 270 individual plants (at last reassessment in 2007). It is a victim of land use change (converting forests to agricultural land) and invasive understory species (like garlic mustard, which you can read all about HERE), which continue to threaten the last three populations in Canada.

Wood poppies are similar to bloodroot, another native species which grows on the forest floor in southwestern Ontario (which you can read all about HERE), in that they produce a rhizome in their first year of growth, and use the sugars stored in that rhizome to produce leaves every spring. The rhizome of one plant isn't nearly as long-lived as in bloodroot, with the lifespan of the average rhizome only being about 5 years. The plant rarely produces flowers in its first year of growth (except in cultivation; it has become a popular garden plant over the last decade or so), so it is sometimes mistaken for other wildflower species during that first year. The seed pods that the plant produces are very unusual and are far larger than you would expect from a plant as small as this one (rarely growing more than 20 cm off the ground) and also share seed characteristics with bloodroot. The seeds are produced with a fleshy, fatty outer covering called an elaiosome which attracts ants. The ants take the small seeds and carry them away to their underground chambers where they use the elaiosome as a rich food source, then discard the seeds when they are finished. The seeds then germinate the next spring and grow up through the ground to produce new plants. This ant-plant dispersal relationship is called myrmecochory. Other animals, if given the chance, will also consume the seeds (seeds were found in great numbers in mouse droppings near one of the remaining populations in Ontario).

Medicinally, despite having close relatives that produce morphine and codeine, this plant has no value. It does contain some alkaloids that may prove useful in some medicinal sense in the future, but right now there is no documented medical use of this plant either currently or historically as an Native North American herbal medicine. The alkaloid cocktail in the plant is more than likely toxic to humans, so avoiding grazing on the leaves if you grow this plant in your garden would be strongly suggested. Wearing gloves when gardening around this plant is also suggested, as the sap from the plant may irritate sensitive skin.

Unfortunately, the fact that this plant is now grown in cultivation and the source of these plants is not a native source (which is actually a good thing; wild-harvesting of this plant in Canada is illegal and would be extremely detrimental to the few plants left in the wild) means there is now the risk of genetically contaminating the remaining plants. The populations in Canada had their DNA sequenced and compared to the US populations and it was shown that these three populations are genetically distinct from their American counterparts. This doesn't mean there was enough difference for them to be considered different species, but there was enough of a difference for it to be noteworthy. When the pollen of a foreign population mixes with the ova of a native population to make seeds, the foreign DNA from the pollen contaminates the native population, effectively creating "genetic hybrids" of both populations. Since plants in cultivation are usually much more susceptible to disease than their wild counterparts, this could be really bad news for our last three native populations.

_________________________________________________________________________________

So why these two plants, you might be wondering? Well, these were the two plants I could best think of to commemorate the loss of a great botanist, my friend and mentor, Dr. Jane M. Bowles.

Jane grew up in Kenya, and some of the stories she shared about her childhood there are out of this world and beyond belief for someone that has lived in Canada their whole life (can you imagine growing up with a lion living in your front yard?! Mind-boggling to me!). She went to school in England, then moved to Canada to complete her PhD in botany about sand dune ecology at Pinery Provincial Park. Since the completion of her PhD, Jane was an adjunct professor in both Biology and Geography at Western and, most recently, the curator of the herbarium and the director of the arboretum.

I first met Jane at the field station associated with Western when I was out there with my supervisor searching for fungi in the woodlot at the back of the property. My supervisor introduced Jane as the curator of the herbarium (assuming I knew what a herbarium was; I was thinking "herbari-what?!"), and we went on our merry way. It wasn't until a couple of months later that I realized that, aside from my supervisor, Jane would probably be the single most important person (well, aside from myself, too, obviously) involved in the successful completion of my PhD. I rely so heavily on herbarium loans to look at historical mushroom specimens that I would have been completely lost without her. Not to mention that Jane was universally loved and respected by all herbarium curators around the world; with her as my primary source of communication to other herbaria I would have no problem having a loan in my possession two, three, sometimes four times longer than the period of time I was actually given. If you think that's bad it's not; it's not unheard of to have herbarium loans for 10 years or more!

Over the last 6 years I would say that Jane and I had become friends. I always knew I could count on her to provide me with a laugh thanks to her biting sense of humour, I could count on her for a swift kick in the bum to get myself in gear when I asked for it, and give me some helpful tips on how not to lose my sanity along the way. I would also say that her love for plants inspired me to grow to love them (sorry for the pun...actually, not sorry. That was carefully planned!), too. She taught me about the importance of native species, and drilled into my head the dangers of invasive non-native species. She opened my eyes to a whole new world of Biology: being a naturalist, and helping preserve the world for what it currently is and not try to change it to be what we want it to become to "improve our life" (it's often too late when we realize that having a giant forest was perhaps a bit better than yet another strip mall...).

Earlier this year, Jane was diagnosed with cancer. On Saturday, July 27th 2013, Jane lost her fight at Victoria Hospital. There won't be a day that goes by where I won't think of her, not a week that goes by during the rest of my time at Western that I won't remember one of her tidbits she told me, and not a year that goes by where I won't be reminded of what an amazing lady Jane was.

Goodbye, Jane. May your memory live on, and may you continue to inspire young impressionable scientists such as myself to become one with nature forever.

Jane was known for her amazing artistic abilities; this is one of her drawings 

of the wood poppy, which she drew for her co-authored species status report 

(you can read the most recent version HERE)

One of the last big burly oaks on campus

Species name: Quercus macrocarpa

Common name: bur oak (sometimes burr oak or even burl oak), mossycup oak

Location: Western University campus

Burr oak trees (that's how I spell it since that's how I was taught to spell it, but Bur oak is just as common a spelling) are native to the Carolinian forest of eastern North America, and are still present throughout much of their native range. Unlike most oak species, the burr oak does best in open areas like savannahs (depending on the area, they can sometimes be the only oak species in a traditional Oak Savannah habitat) and actually does rather poorly in forested areas. It is very shade-intolerant but grows very quickly, and these two characteristics have made it one of the most popular boulevard trees (or landscaping tree). The burr oak is also incredibly long-lived, with some individuals reaching ages of 350 years or more! That's one old tree!

Like most oak species, the burr oak is known for its masting. Masting is when a tree over-produces fruit in an attempt to overwhelm seed predators so that some of their offspring (fruits are the structures produced by plants to carry and protect their seeds, which are their babies) make it to the next generation. Burr oak seeds are some of the most prized nuts in the eyes of wildlife (like squirrels, deer, and in some places even bears), and they will selectively eat burr oak acorns over any other type of acorn. There are a few reasons why this occurs: first, the acorns are the largest of any oak species ("macrocarpa" means "big fruit"). Second, the acorn wall, or that tough shell you have to crack through to get to the yummy meat of the nut, is quite thin compared to other oak species so it's much easier to eat. Third, there are fewer tannis in the acorns of the burr oak, which make it much more palatable than other oak species. They are rumoured to even be choice edibles to humans, although I've never tried one. As long as you roast it a bit I could see them being at the very least edible, but tasty? I don't know if I'd go that far. I would make a terrible forager! When tree seeds are the most eaten food item of an animal species that has co-evolved with the tree, they tend to use really odd yearly cycles to over-produce fruits. These masting years, depending on the species, are every 7, 9, or 11 years. Our red oak in the front yard had a masting year a couple years ago. It sounded like it was raining acorns every time the wind lightly blew through the tree! It was incredible. The squirrels didn't know what to do with themselves :) To put it into perspective just how many burr oak acorns are eaten by wildlife, there are reports of certain trees in Tennessee and Kentucky in "bear country" near the Great Smokey Mountains having a 0% reproductive rate in some years (non-masting years, that is). When you set up video cameras to check out what's going on with these trees reproducing less than their neighbours, you catch bears climbing the trees and eating every single acorn they encounter. They'll even rip off branches or shake the trunk of the tree to get the ones higher than they can climb (bears are heavy, you know!), and then scramble down the tree to eat what dropped. Something tells me you don't want to come between a burr oak and a bear...

Unfortunately, the burr oak that I took a picture of and its nearest equally old neighbour are on their way out as far as tree lifetimes go. The third picture above shows where a branch broke off many, many years ago and a massive hole has formed in its place. I have no idea if the hole is occupied, but it's large enough to be an ideal place for a Great Horned Owl to build a nest. And those birds are huge! It would also be a good nesting place for a raccoon family, or the equivalent of a Hollywood mansion for a family of squirrels. The fourth picture shows where on that same tree the bark is starting to come off the tree. Unlike in my previous blog post about the butternut (which you can read HERE), this is not a direct result of a fungal infection. There is now likely a fungus that has exploited the tree's old age and exposed wood, but that bark fell off because the tree is just getting old and nearing the end of its natural life. The last picture shows where more bark is coming off the tree near the base, and you can see that it, at one point, was heavily infested with insects. Again, that's likely not what caused the bark to come off in the first place, but once the old rotting wood was exposed the insects took advantage. The tree is also likely hollow, because the old inner wood of trees is often decayed by fungi before the tree is completely dead; this is called heart rot. This also doesn't directly kill the tree, but rather creates a standing hollow tube. Doesn't take much of a wind storm to knock the tree down once the structural integrity is compromised. I personally have no idea how old this tree is (I might be "old" according to my students, but I'm not THAT old!), but I'm guessing upwards of 250 years. It will be a shame to see this tree come down in a storm, and I'm sure it's not that many more years before it does.

Aside from being some of the oldest trees that can be found around southern Ontario and the eastern half of the United States, burr oaks can also be some of the largest. They grow to be very, very tall trees but also grow to an enormous girth. It's hard to tell from the above pictures, but the burr oak I was taking pictures of is one of the largest trees on campus. To put it into perspective, I took a picture of the width of the tree at "breast height" (about 4 feet off the ground; this is traditionally a way to determine if a tree is ready for logging) with the arboretum label for size:

Still doesn't really look like much, but that arboretum label measures 2.5 by 5 inches (or about 6 x 14 centimetres). So if you figure out what the diameter of the tree is (by my rough estimation, 63 inches or 160 centimetres), that's...enormous. That would make it about 196 inches in circumference (or almost 5 meters!). You would need three people joining hands to comfortably circle the tree. That's bigger than enormous! There are two trees of this size that are burr oaks, and a couple hackberries (look for this species to be covered in my next blog), all in the same general location. Standing here looking at the trees, I often wonder what these trees have "seen". They would have survived the entire outwards growth of the city I live in, and would have been here long before London, Ontario actually became a city. I wonder who planted them? Or was this an acorn that sprouted there? If it was, where was the tree it came from? It would be long gone by now. Did anyone care for this tree when it was a wee seedling? If so, who were they? What did they do? Did the Kingsmill family, the ones that owned the property that Western University is built on for many generations before Western purchased all of the land in 1919, ever use this tree for a rope swing? When there were bears living in southwestern Ontario, did bears used to climb this tree to get the acorns? So many questions and no one left to ask...

When I helped Jane Bowles with an arboretum tour back in June, she said that the four trees in this small patch of campus were "some of" the largest, oldest trees on campus. I never thought to ask her where the biggest or the oldest trees were. I guess I'll have to go exploring to find them myself now (and learn a bit about how to determine the age of a really big tree depending on the species). Until then, I'll just have to be content with the geezer trees I know :)

Dr. Jane Bowles: a great botanist, friend, and mentor

Species name: Acacia tortilis

Common name: umbrella acacia, Israeli babool (in Swahili: mgunga, mugumba or munga)

Location: all photos from Dave's Garden (photo 1 by DMersh, photo 2 by DMersh, and photo 3 by palmbob)

You might be wondering why I'm featuring this plant in my blog today; for a full explanation you can scroll down to the bottom of this blog post past the next plant profile. Umbrella acacia trees are probably one of the first plants that come to mind when you think of Africa. They are for me at least! They have an enormous native range, reaching from the north all the way to the south of Africa and into the Middle East. When I think of the African savannah, this is by far the first tree (and sometimes the only tree; I'll be the first to admit that my African botany knowledge is quite limited!) that comes to mind.

The umbrella acacia actually looks rarely like an umbrella when grown in cultivation. Because it is so extremely drought tolerant, it is often grown in climates where the type of ecosystem that prevails for most of the year is a dry, sandy desert. Here, the umbrella acacia looks more like an acacia with a bad hair day, and is very straggly and wiry. It is only when the young seedlings are exposed to large amounts of rain that the trees end up developing into the typical umbrella-shape that is so characteristic of the African savannah. That, and grazing animals that force the tree into that shape couldn't hurt; this tree is one of the preferred food sources of giraffes. The "umbrella" of the canopy begins where the branches are just out of reach from the giraffes and everything below that point is eaten away. That's not the only animal that eats the umbrella acacia: humans have also used this tree as a source of gum arabic (added to many, many food items), and the seed pods are used for various herbal medicines. The seeds may be eaten by humans but are rich in tannins so are usually avoided (but may be used as a source of natural dye instead!), however other grazing animals like small mammals or birds eat these seeds as a rich (and rare) source of protein and fat.

There are quite a few products made from the wood of this tree, and is one of the reasons why it is grown so much in cultivation in Africa and the Middle East. The wood is very important for fine woodworking products like wagon wheels and furniture, as well as raw lumber for fenceposts and animal pens. The tabernacle, built by Israelites in the Old Testament, was also exclusively built from wood of the umbrella acacia so it has important religious significance as well. It also has very high significance to more than 20 different groups of people (either groups defined by language, linguistic dialects, country lines, or cultural beliefs), but the most important of which for the purposes of this blog post is that it's the National Tree of Kenya.

Species name: Stylophorum diphyllum

Common name: wood poppy, Celandine poppy

Location: Dave's Garden -- DaylilySLP

I think this is probably the only critically endangered wildflower species that I've ever personally seen in Ontario. When I saw it I didn't realize what it was or how important it was, so I didn't bother photographing it despite having my camera with me. Next time! There are only three populations in Ontario, which is the most northern part of its native range (which extends into the United States and is still quite limited; it is now only a small fragment of what it used to be), ranging in population size from 42 individual plants to about 270 individual plants (at last reassessment in 2007). It is a victim of land use change (converting forests to agricultural land) and invasive understory species (like garlic mustard, which you can read all about HERE), which continue to threaten the last three populations in Canada.

Wood poppies are similar to bloodroot, another native species which grows on the forest floor in southwestern Ontario (which you can read all about HERE), in that they produce a rhizome in their first year of growth, and use the sugars stored in that rhizome to produce leaves every spring. The rhizome of one plant isn't nearly as long-lived as in bloodroot, with the lifespan of the average rhizome only being about 5 years. The plant rarely produces flowers in its first year of growth (except in cultivation; it has become a popular garden plant over the last decade or so), so it is sometimes mistaken for other wildflower species during that first year. The seed pods that the plant produces are very unusual and are far larger than you would expect from a plant as small as this one (rarely growing more than 20 cm off the ground) and also share seed characteristics with bloodroot. The seeds are produced with a fleshy, fatty outer covering called an elaiosome which attracts ants. The ants take the small seeds and carry them away to their underground chambers where they use the elaiosome as a rich food source, then discard the seeds when they are finished. The seeds then germinate the next spring and grow up through the ground to produce new plants. This ant-plant dispersal relationship is called myrmecochory. Other animals, if given the chance, will also consume the seeds (seeds were found in great numbers in mouse droppings near one of the remaining populations in Ontario).

Medicinally, despite having close relatives that produce morphine and codeine, this plant has no value. It does contain some alkaloids that may prove useful in some medicinal sense in the future, but right now there is no documented medical use of this plant either currently or historically as an Native North American herbal medicine. The alkaloid cocktail in the plant is more than likely toxic to humans, so avoiding grazing on the leaves if you grow this plant in your garden would be strongly suggested. Wearing gloves when gardening around this plant is also suggested, as the sap from the plant may irritate sensitive skin.

Unfortunately, the fact that this plant is now grown in cultivation and the source of these plants is not a native source (which is actually a good thing; wild-harvesting of this plant in Canada is illegal and would be extremely detrimental to the few plants left in the wild) means there is now the risk of genetically contaminating the remaining plants. The populations in Canada had their DNA sequenced and compared to the US populations and it was shown that these three populations are genetically distinct from their American counterparts. This doesn't mean there was enough difference for them to be considered different species, but there was enough of a difference for it to be noteworthy. When the pollen of a foreign population mixes with the ova of a native population to make seeds, the foreign DNA from the pollen contaminates the native population, effectively creating "genetic hybrids" of both populations. Since plants in cultivation are usually much more susceptible to disease than their wild counterparts, this could be really bad news for our last three native populations.

_________________________________________________________________________________

So why these two plants, you might be wondering? Well, these were the two plants I could best think of to commemorate the loss of a great botanist, my friend and mentor, Dr. Jane M. Bowles.

Jane grew up in Kenya, and some of the stories she shared about her childhood there are out of this world and beyond belief for someone that has lived in Canada their whole life (can you imagine growing up with a lion living in your front yard?! Mind-boggling to me!). She went to school in England, then moved to Canada to complete her PhD in botany about sand dune ecology at Pinery Provincial Park. Since the completion of her PhD, Jane was an adjunct professor in both Biology and Geography at Western and, most recently, the curator of the herbarium and the director of the arboretum.

I first met Jane at the field station associated with Western when I was out there with my supervisor searching for fungi in the woodlot at the back of the property. My supervisor introduced Jane as the curator of the herbarium (assuming I knew what a herbarium was; I was thinking "herbari-what?!"), and we went on our merry way. It wasn't until a couple of months later that I realized that, aside from my supervisor, Jane would probably be the single most important person (well, aside from myself, too, obviously) involved in the successful completion of my PhD. I rely so heavily on herbarium loans to look at historical mushroom specimens that I would have been completely lost without her. Not to mention that Jane was universally loved and respected by all herbarium curators around the world; with her as my primary source of communication to other herbaria I would have no problem having a loan in my possession two, three, sometimes four times longer than the period of time I was actually given. If you think that's bad it's not; it's not unheard of to have herbarium loans for 10 years or more!

Over the last 6 years I would say that Jane and I had become friends. I always knew I could count on her to provide me with a laugh thanks to her biting sense of humour, I could count on her for a swift kick in the bum to get myself in gear when I asked for it, and give me some helpful tips on how not to lose my sanity along the way. I would also say that her love for plants inspired me to grow to love them (sorry for the pun...actually, not sorry. That was carefully planned!), too. She taught me about the importance of native species, and drilled into my head the dangers of invasive non-native species. She opened my eyes to a whole new world of Biology: being a naturalist, and helping preserve the world for what it currently is and not try to change it to be what we want it to become to "improve our life" (it's often too late when we realize that having a giant forest was perhaps a bit better than yet another strip mall...).

Earlier this year, Jane was diagnosed with cancer. On Saturday, July 27th 2013, Jane lost her fight at Victoria Hospital. There won't be a day that goes by where I won't think of her, not a week that goes by during the rest of my time at Western that I won't remember one of her tidbits she told me, and not a year that goes by where I won't be reminded of what an amazing lady Jane was.

Goodbye, Jane. May your memory live on, and may you continue to inspire young impressionable scientists such as myself to become one with nature forever.

Jane was known for her amazing artistic abilities; this is one of her drawings 

of the wood poppy, which she drew for her co-authored species status report 

(you can read the most recent version HERE)

The Witch Hazel from which we get witch hazel

Species name: Hamamelis virginiana

Common name: Witch hazel

Location: Ontario

The witch hazel shrub was one of the very first woody plants that I learned how to identify in second year in an ecology course. I'm not sure why, of all "uncommon" plant species I managed to retain that one, but there it is. I use "uncommon" relatively; I knew, along with everyone else in the class, what a maple tree was, the difference between white and red oak, etc. This plant was one of the first I learned about that wasn't commonly spoken about by gardeners in my area. It could be because of it's characteristic relatively round leaves, and the uneven leaf base. I learned later that an uneven leaf base with nothing else to go on is actually incredibly common in the plant kingdom, and is a terrible single characteristic on which to base an identification! Witch hazel is a native plant across much of Canada (and North America in general), but has been naturalized in many parts of Europe and Australia. In the genus Hamamelis there are also a few species native to Asia in parts of China and Japan.

The uses of this shrub are many. The most famous use by far is as the main ingredient for the astrigent "witch hazel", which is obviously made from this plant. The leaves and young twigs are boiled down to extract the chemicals unique to the plant called hamamelitannins, which are chemically related to tannins found in oak galls (read about them HERE), walnut husks (read about them HERE), and in red wine. They have quite potent medicinal value, and have been used for centuries against swelling, superficial injuries, inflammation, and tumour suppression. It is also a very effective treatment for acne and other facial blemishes, and is a popular over-the-counter medication. It is also used to treat psoriasis, eczema, ingrown toenails, skin burns, poison ivy rashes, varicose veins and hemorrhoids. Whew!

Earlier this year the evidence that witch hazel extract is useful for tumour growth suppression was validated by a study jointly performed in Spain and the United States. They found that when the hamamelitannin extract was applied on colon cancer cells, it caused programmed cell death (an incredibly unusual phenomenon in cancer cells). When applied to a mixture of cancer cells and normal colon cells, only the cancerous cells were killed where the healthy ones survived. This is a very promising result, suggesting that this might one day be an incredibly effective treatment and cure for colon cancer. Clinical trials still need to be done on in vivo animal tissues, so there is still a very long time to wait for this to make it to the market, providing it is effective in the body and can be easily and practically administered.

The blackest of the walnuts

Species name: Juglans nigra

Common name: Black walnut

Location: Ontario

This tree was once incredibly rare in Canada, but now is starting to bounce back in population numbers due to the planting of ornamental specimens. The black walnut is native to the Carolinian Forest, which extends from the Carolinas northward to southwestern Ontario. The black walnut is now relatively common in British Columbia for its attractiveness as an ornamental species, but also its value as a lumber tree.

Black walnut has been used for centuries as one of the most valuable lumber trees in North America. Since these trees have one main trunk (unlike many oak species which tend to fork after about 40 or 50 years) that is usually incredibly straight, they make very long boards suitable for furniture building. At one time, walnut was even used as a siding for houses and as material to build decks. Not a smart use since it isn't as resistant to decay like a gymnosperm wood would be (like pine or cedar), and incredibly expensive! Since the grain and colour of the wood is so attractive, the wood is so easily worked, and the wood is not very likely to bend or warp when used indoors, the prices for black walnut wood soared in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Getting a piece of furniture made of solid walnut is rare today, and would cost thousands of dollars. It is much more common to have furniture made out of a wood like oak (or, worse yet, particleboard or plywood) and either veneered or stained to look like walnut. Sometimes, too, only the exterior parts of a piece of furniture will be made out of walnut, and all of the "guts" of the piece, the parts you can't see, will be made out of a much cheaper wood.

The black walnut is a great example of a tree with a compound leaf. It is by far not the most impressive example, either in Canada or around the world, but it has a very distinctive leaf that is easily identified. If you look at the third picture down, you can see where the petiole of the leaf (the green "leaf stalk" onto which all of the leaflets are attached) is swollen at the base and wraps almost all the way around the branch that it's attached to. There is a very similar and closely related species of tree in Canada, the butternut (also called the white walnut) that has one major characteristic of the leaves that is different from the black walnut. If you look at the end of the leaf, you'll notice that there's no terminal leaflet in the black walnut (sometimes there is, but it is never the same size as the rest of the leaflets). The butternut always has a terminal leaflet, and it's always at least the same size (sometimes bigger) as the rest of the leaflets.

Yes, the walnuts you buy at the store are the fruit of this tree! The best way to harvest them is to pull them off the tree when the fruit is still green and unripe since that's when the flesh on the inside tastes best. The green outer husk is incredibly difficult to remove (just sit and listen to a squirrel trying to get inside a walnut!), and the best and easiest way is to run over the fruit with an SUV. I'm not kidding! Line them up on the driveway or in a parking lot, and give it a go! Once the outer husk is removed, the nut on the inside (with the hard shell that's sold in grocery stores as "in-shell walnuts") will start to look familiar. Take a nut-craker, crack open the outer shell and enjoy! They don't need to be roasted in the oven first, but some people enjoy them more that way. Unfortunately, what's sold most often in grocery stores is the Persian walnut which is much easier to harvest (and probably accounts for its higher popularity). This is causing more and more Persian walnut trees to be planted in favour of the native species, which is always a downside of agriculture! A word of caution: if you're going to harvest your own black walnut nuts, make sure you wear gloves! Anyone who has seen the remnants of squirrels gnawing their way through a walnut on the sidewalk knows just how potent the dye from the husk, made up of juglone, plumbagin and tannins, can be! It will permanently dye your hands for weeks, and was actually often used as a permanent hair dye (and sometimes still is in "natural beauty products").

One downside of having black walnut in your yard is the fact that walnuts produce juglone in all of their tissues, including the roots. This chemical prevents the growth of most species of plants (and is incredibly toxic to some animals), so under most black walnut trees is a "dead zone" where nothing grows. This chemical is so potent that even black walnut seedlings, who can produce the chemical themselves, are sensitive to it and will die! This phenomenon is referred to as allelopathy, and one of the species I've already talked about, Norway Maple, is another good example of an allelopathic plant. Another good reason to wear gloves when harvesting walnuts is that some people are sensitive to juglone on their skin and it can cause an itchy rash (but the rash doesn't last as long as the dye on your hands does!).

When is a Geranium actually a Geranium?

Species name: Geranium maculatum

Common name: Wild geranium, Spotted geranium, Wood geranium

Location: Ontario

I must say, I'm pleased to find out that this is a native plant! The wild geranium is native to eastern North America and the northeastern United States. There's an shockingly similar plant that's native to Europe called the Wild Cranesbill (this plant is also sometimes called the Wild Cranesbill in Canada and Woodland Geranium in Europe...no one said the common names of plants were any less confusing than the Latin names!), but it has slightly different shaped petals so I'm pretty sure this is the North American species. It's one of my favourite "weeds" in the garden that grows either by the pond (think small...it's more like a big permanent puddle than it is a "paddle around in a canoe and find frogs" pond) or by the fence at the back of the yard, but seemingly never in both places in the same year. This year seems to be a "by the fence year"!

Confusingly (no part of this blog post seems to be straight-forward...), this is only somewhat distantly related to the "garden geranium" that many North Americans and Europeans plant in their gardens right around this time of year. Those geraniums are in a genus named Pelargonium, and all of those species are native to South Africa (this refers to the southern part of the continent, not the country; just making sure we're sticking to the "confusing blog post" theme!). Both of these genera are part of the same family, the Geraniaceae. To compare Latin names to common names, the story doesn't get any clearer: species of Pelargonium are referred to as Storksbills, while species of Geranium are referred to as Cranesbills. In North America, we call one species of bird a stork and another a crane, while the reverse is true in Europe. So you can't even use the shape of the mature fruit to determine if it's a crane or a stork bill, because it would depend on your geography which one is which. I'll give you some time to think that one through... :)

Like many spring wild flowers, the wild geranium relies on a rhizome to accumulate nutrients during the fall to use for spring growth. The rhizome is high in tannins (the same chemicals that give dry red wine the "mouth pucker feel") and has been used in the medicinal practices of many indigenous peoples to treat diarrhea, canker sores, gum disease, thrush in babies, venereal disease, and what is probably throat cancer. It might be effective against some mouth-related ailments, but I doubt it's going to turn out to be the next great cure or treatment for cancer. I have been wrong before, so we'll have to wait and see! It has also been used to prevent infection around the site of the umbilical cord cut in newborns, as a component of anti-bacterial face wash, as an anti-itch paste, and to counter-act a "love medicine." This plant sure gets around!