Water Oak
Quercus nigra
Five leaf buds from a sapling living in a pot.
Actual length of specimen pictured above: about 5cm.
In the nineteenth century the water oak bore the scientific name Quercus aquática. But science is seldom static. Taxonomy, in particular, often attracts the attention of generational revisionists, who create fashionable new names under the guise of objectivity. When renowned Professor Asa Gray of Harvard wrote his textbook Gray's School And Field Book Of Botany in the 1880s, the Quercus nigra referred to the "black-jack or barren oak." Today the blackjack lives under the nomenclature Quercus marilandica, while the water oak stands as the new Quercus nigra, and the aquática is merely an obscure footnote in history.
The water oak pictured above was one of White River Nursery's native Arkansas trees until I acquired it for twelve dollars a few weeks ago.
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Photo by Beau Bosko
Crow's Cottage • April 10, 2013
Smitten by
the Trees of Arkansas
Monday, April 15, 2013
Rural Washington County, Arkansas
The trees I plant and nurture begin as ideas on the imagined landscape. Some I envision growing in a special place on the garden grounds, rooted for a lifespan in the fertile Ozark soil. Others I see as saplings in a pot, residing in temporary quarters for a few seasons while making their way upward toward the heavenlies... and then, at just the right moment, finding a secure home in the good earth.
Eventually, most of my arboreal ideas are transformed into material expressions, making real the wish and the dream. I make my choices, find a source of supply, and write the check.
In our market-driven, advert-rich culture, choosing is the easy part, though the smart choice can sometimes be hard to come by. Writing the check isn't so difficult, either, especially after the writer has learned through hard knocks to live within means. The challenge is finding the right source.
My bare-root saplings arrive by truck from the nurseries of the Missouri Department of Conservation, the Arkansas Forestry Commission, and the Arbor Day Foundation. To find larger saplings and young trees for my imagined landscape, I look to commercial nurseries here in northwest Arkansas. One of my very favorites is the White River Nursery on Arkansas Highway 16 between the city of Fayetteville and the town of Elkins. The good folk at White River have gone native over the past several years, making their "Native Arkansas Trees and Perennials" initiative one of the most unique features in the local marketplace.
Sassafras
Sassafras albidum
A bud on the cusp of opening.
Actual size from bud tip to base of stem: 2.5cm.
Graceful of form and elegant of color, the little bud lives on a sassafras tree purchased for thirty-five dollars from White River Nursery's "Native Arkansas Trees and Perennials" inventory on March 6, 2013. An inch of rain fell the day I captured the photograph.
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Photo by Beau Bosko
Crow's Cottage • April 10, 2013
A Fashionable Movement
toward Sustainable Wildlife
Emma Franklin oversees the native Arkansas project, working with wholesale suppliers to find as many indigenous species as possible. "The previous owners of White River began to develop the concept of a perennial and native nursery," Emma said. "When Tray became owner, he kept the idea going. Now we're actively looking for whatever natives we can find, especially the perennials."
Tray Morrison acquired White River in the spring of 2010. He embraces the native Arkansas concept because it satisfies local demand for indigenous species. "Increasingly we have landscapers who are looking for Arkansas native plants in response to their customers' requests, so we try to fill that demand," he said.
Customer demand for native plants is fashionable nowadays, especially in prosperous communities like northwest Arkansas. You could say the demand is linked to a national movement toward the idea of "sustainable wildlife," inspired in part by Professor Douglas W. Tallamy's influential 2008 book, Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants. To some gardeners and insect enthusiasts, Dr. Tallamy's text is not only a practical guidebook for sensible gardening, but also a visionary manifesto about the dangers of "alien plant species" and the essential value of native species to the health and ultimate survival of indigenous ecosystems, habitats, and biodiversity.
Native as botanical concept and ecological creed can rouse downright militant attitudes among some serious gardeners and environmentalists. One well-known horticulturalist from down in the river valley told me last weekend she wishes she could take a chainsaw to every Bradford pear and Japanese honeysuckle in Arkansas. To Emma and Tray, native stands not for controversy, but for the opportunity to serve their customers. The term also provides a valuable descriptor of available plant stock.
"We don't go by a specific number of years to make that determination," Emma said about attempts to nail-down a precise definition of native. "Is it 30 to 50 years? Maybe we're looking at a hundred years for a plant to be at home in an area. It's a slippery concept. Our approach is to defer to something that would be agreeable with the Arkansas Forestry Commission, to the horticulturist and the landscape planner with the City of Fayetteville, and to our master gardeners. We always listen carefully to our master gardeners — what they want, what they've learned, what they're looking for."
Good Folk
The crew at White River Nursery
(from left) Scott Darnell, Emma Franklin, Charity Lewis, and Tray Morrison.
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Photo by Beau Bosko
In a greenhouse at White River • April 2, 2013
When I visited White River in early April, I was smitten by the many little trees — a thoughtfully structured, creatively mustered, and biologically robust stock of native specimens arrayed in informal groupings hither 'n thither about the nursery grounds. A hard rain rattled the translucent roof of the main greenhouse. It was a cold morning in a spring season reluctant to arrive. Emma paused from her duties to help me compile a list of the trees available for purchase. Here they are:
white oak
Quercus alba |
willow oak
Quercus phellos |
cow oak
Quercus michauxii |
nuttall oak
Quercus nuttallii |
northern red oak
Quercus rubra |
pin oak
Quercus palustris |
sawtooth oak
Quercus acutissima |
burr oak
Quercus macrocarpa |
scarlet oak
Quercus coccinea |
shumard oak
Quercus shumardii |
overcup oak
Quercus lyrata |
yellowwood
Cladrastis lutea |
American hazelnut
Corylus americana |
ginkgo
Ginkgo biloba |
black walnut
Juglans nigra |
pecan
Carya illinoensis |
shagbark hickory
Carya ovata |
red mulberry
Morus rubra |
pawpaw
Asimina triloba |
sassafras
Sassafras albidum |
Ohio white buckeye Aesculus glabra |
red buckeye Aesculus pavia |
serviceberry Amelanchier arborea |
persimmon
Diospyros virginiana |
vernal witchhazel Hamamelis vernalis |
eastern witchhazel
Hamamelis virginiana |
white fringetree Chioanthus virginicus |
baldcypress
Taxodium distichum |
sugar maple
Acer saccharum |
red maple
Acer rubrum |
Washington hawthorn
Crataegus phaenopyrum |
green hawthorn
Crataegus viridis |
possumhaw Ilex decidua |
flowering dogwood
Cornus florida |
sourwood Oxydendrum arboreum |
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Altitudes, Latitudes, Habitats
I suppose some botanists and most purists would argue about a few of the trees on the list, but why? Every one of these gentle living creatures, ginkgo included, is well established as a species here in Arkansas. None are enemy to the flora of the indigenous habitat. None threaten the health of our ecology or deny food sources to insects. Every tree on the list has been a part of the Arkansas landscape since before anyone of us was born.
"A native plant species is one that occurs naturally in a particular region, state, ecosystem, and habitat without direct or indirect human actions," states the Federal Native Plant Committee as quoted on the Audubon web. Wikipedia is not so windy, stating simply that "native plant is a term to describe plants endemic (indigenous) or naturalized to a given area in geologic time."
I respect White River's decision to promote the native idea because it's a sincere and reasoned effort to satisfy a demand without being cynically commercial. It's attuned to the times without so much as a hint of opportunism. For someone like me who loves trees, going to White River is like being the proverbial kid in the candy store with my weekly allowance burning a hole in my pocket.
"Owners of native nurseries are also finding it easier and easier to enumerate the benefits of their offerings," Professor Tallamy wrote in Bringing Nature Home. "Native plants are well adapted to their particular ecological niche and so are often far less difficult to grow than species from other altitudes, latitudes, and habitats. After all, these plants evolved here and were growing just fine long before we laid our heavy hands on the landscape."
Sustainable, Nurturing, Beautiful
Emma's enthusiasm for Arkansas native plants is rooted in her passion for flora of all varieties and her abiding interest in learning about her new home in the Ozarks. Granddaughter of Dr. Byron Leon Franklin, a well-known country doctor from southeast Missouri, Emma was raised in Popular Bluff, where the Mississippi River dominates the local ecology. She joined the crew at White River early in the spring of 2012, not long after moving to the West Fork area to pursue her dream of becoming a farmer.
"Northwest Arkansas is a very different ecosystem than the river delta where I grew up," Emma said. "I enjoy learning about this area. And I like connecting with our customers to help them create sustainable gardens with plants that are going to feed them and their families. We are helping gardeners create habitats for wildlife, and we are helping them make beautiful gardens — all with plants that use less water and not a lot of intensive care."
Golden Raintree
Koelreuteria paniculata
Young leaves emerge from a sapling in the arboretum.
The baby leaves are only three days out of the bud. Wispy and delicate, they are very small, about one-fifth the size shown here.
Botanists tell us the raintree was introduced to the USA in 1763. Is it native by now? Are 250 years time enough to make the species indigenous to North America? As I understand the argument put forth by the purists, probably not. But consider this: The word "indigenous" entered the English language only a hundred years before the first raintree from the Orient arrived by boat in the New World. Is "indigenous" native to the English language? Where do we draw our timelines on the psychic sands?
On a commonplace level, a golden raintree sounds way too exotic for the Arkansas Ozarks. My first edition (1950) of Trees of Arkansas by Dwight Munson Moore makes no mention of the species. However, my Fourth Revised Edition (1991) of the same handbook devotes a full page to the "Goldenraintree," noting that it is "widely planted as an attractive flowering tree" and is also known as the "China-tree." It may not be native in the mind of a strident purist, but somewhere along the line, the raintree became a Tree of Arkansas in the studied opinion of the natural state's foremost botanist of the twentieth century. (May God rest his soul.)
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Photo by Beau Bosko
Crow's Cottage • April 11, 2013
White River Nursery on Facebook
For particulars about location, hours of operation, contact information, and special promotions, White River Nursery's facebook page tells all.
Chicken Moon Farm
It's gotta be one of the sweetest places on the planet! Founded by Charity Lewis, one of the crew at White River, Chicken Moon Farm is a permaculture adventure in connecting with nature and making a happier, healthier world. Charity's web telling about the farm is a delight — and when you go there, be sure to read the wonderful little story of how the farm got its name.
Why Plants Change Their Names
Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in London on the River Thames asks the question, "Why, oh why, do botanists keep changing the names of our garden plants?" It's a leading question, of course. Kew's answer is based on three reasons: taxonomic, misidentification, and nomenclatural.