The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for the destruction of our race. –Rachel Carson
Native Trees of Southwestern Pennsylvania
(originally compiled by Phipps Botanical art and Illustration program for their 2015 Flora Project)
A collaboration between Phipps’ Botanical Art and Illustration program and the Allegheny Highlands Botanical Art Society, this show features native trees of southwestern Pennsylvania. Native trees play an important role in our ecosystem, having evolved complex and specific relationships with insects that, in turn, play an essential role in our local food chain. Native trees also help create a sense of place. Their unique combination of elements - form, bark, fruit and leaf color - create a rich tapestry different than any other place on earth.
Note that the following descriptions are each written by the artist and thus vary in content and scope. The trees are listed by their common names in alphabetic order.
American beech (Fagus grandifolia)
Watercolor, Graphite, Micron Pen | Ann Rosenthal
I chose the American Beech as a tribute to the passenger pigeon. The species was declared extinct in 1914 following the death of “Martha,” the last passenger pigeon in the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens. Beechnuts were a favored food of the birds. The reasons for the extinction were many, but in part, it was the result of habitat loss, including the American Beech forests of the eastern U.S. I drew inspiration for my composition from historical botanical portraits. I combined aspects from three approaches, incorporating both plant parts and a forest scene to contextualize the plant parts within an interdependent ecosystem. I chose pen and ink with watercolor to mimic early botanical woodblock prints that were hand colored. What I love most about botanical art is that it demands my full attention to study and know intimately the complexity and wonder of an individual plant.
Bitternut hickory (Carya cordiformis)
Watercolor and Colored Pencil | Anne Frederickson
Found throughout eastern and midwestern forests, the Bitternut hickory is a deciduous tree in the walnut family. It can reach 80 feet high with a diameter of up to three feet. In young trees, the bark tends toward light to medium gray with few fissures but becomes rough and irregular with age. The alternate, compound leaves range in size from eight to twelve inches and feature serrated margins. While medium to dark green in spring and summer, the leaves turn golden, then brown, in the fall. Both male and female flowers, three to four inches long, form on the same tree in the spring; the male catkins are in threes, the female catkins in ones and twos. As its name suggests, the tree’s nuts are extremely bitter, only occasionally being eaten by small rodents and mammals. More commonly, animals feed on the branches and foliage. This species thrives in woodland areas, sheltered river valleys, and along rocky glade edges.
The Bitternut hickory has varied uses. While the strength of the wood is not comparable to other hickories, it is still used for furniture, lumber, dowels, and tool handles. It is especially valued as fuel for cooking hickory-smoked meat and as fuel for furnaces, fireplaces, and cook stoves.
Black walnut (Juglans nigra)
Watercolor | Cynthia Byrne-Margetts
The Black walnut makes a great shade tree for larger properties. They commonly grow to 50 feet or taller and about as wide, and specimens of more than 100 feet have been recorded. Black walnut’s large, fern-like foliage provides light, airy shade for those grasses and ground covers not affected by juglone, a a natural herbicide that prevents many plants from growing within its reach.In autumn, the leaves turn bright yellow, contrasting nicely with the tree’s rugged, dark bark.
The early settlers discovered black walnuts growing in mixed forests from Canada to northern Florida and west to the Great Plains. They found that its rich-brown heartwood was exceptionally resistant to decay and put it to use as fence posts, poles, shingles, and sills. When surrounded by other trees in the forest, black walnut grows straight and tall with few, if any, lower branches. When planted in the open, the tree will branch out closer to the ground, developing a spreading shape that makes it easier to harvest its sweet, round, two to three-inch nuts. The settlers snacked on the nutritious nuts out of hand, added them to soups and stews, and ground them into meal for baking; the hard shells provided a perfect package for storing the nuts over winter. (Description from Farmer’s Almanac.)
Cucumber magnolia (Magnolia acuminate)
Watercolor | Terry Smith
The Cucumber Magnolia tree is a deciduous tree, growing 50-90 feet tall with a pyramidal shape and straight trunk. It is the only magnolia with furrowed bark and yellow green flowers. The fruit is a 2-1/2 inch cucumber-like pod that splits and releases a berry-like fruit. The seeds are dispersed by birds. They can be found growing in rich woods or near stream banks. On its branch is a female Promethea moth, ready to lay eggs. Females differ in color from the darker males, but both have the characteristic eye spot on their wings. The female also has a larger body and flies at night, the male by day. The Promethea wingspan is between 3-4 inches. The magnolia is a host plant for the Promethea’s offspring.
Eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoids)
Colored Pencil with Silver Leaf | Jeanne Perrier
The Eastern Cottonwood is a member of the Poplar family. It is a deciduous tree that can grow to 120 feet and is happiest in low lying areas, such as swamps and floodplains. All specimens depicted are from Presque Isle, where about 1000 Eastern Cottonwoods were planted in the early 20th century by the Army Corps of Engineers for soil stabilization. These trees have proven to be beneficial in deterring dune erosion.
Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis)
Colored Pencil | Marguerite Matz
The hackberry tree, a member of the elm family, is a small to large deciduous tree. Its bark is mostly gray with many rough and irregular patches. The light green hackberry flowers are wind-pollinated and appear with the leaves in spring. The leaves often carry a wart-like growth on the underside known as a hackberry nipple gall that's caused by an insect called a psyllid. Several different butterflies feed on the leaves, including both the hackberry emporer and tawny emporer. The fruit is a small drupe with a thin edible layer ripening to dark red in the fall. It provides winter food for many small mammals and birds. Wood of the hackberry was formerly used for furniture and crates, but now it is primarily planted as an ornamental tree.
Northern white-cedar (Thuja occidentalis)
Colored Pencil and Graphite | Raana Chughtai
Thuja occidentalis, also known as the Northern White Cedar, is an evergreen coniferous tree. It is native to eastern Canada, as well as much of the northern, central and upper northeastern parts of the United States. Thuja occidentalis grows naturally in wet forests and is particularly abundant in coniferous swamps. The uses of this species of tree are varied. The essential oil within the plant has been used for cleaners, disinfectants, insecticides, and soaps. The wood is often used commercially for rustic fencing and posts, lumber poles, shingles, and for the construction of log cabins.
Osage orange (Maclura pomifera)
Watercolor | Marian Atkins
The Osage orange is a deciduous tree with tough orange inner bark and wood. It is dioecious, meaning there are separate male and female trees. The flowers are wind pollinated. The fruit, also known as hedge apple, horse apple, or monkey ball, has a convoluted surface formed by the swollen pistils and exudes a sticky milky sap. The Osage orange was naturalized across southern Pennsylvania from its native habitat spanning Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The tree’s dense growth and thorny limbs made it an ideal field border. While keeping livestock fenced in, the Osage orange provided shelter to many birds and insects. Squirrels and other small mammals tear apart the fibrous fruit to eat the seeds. The inner bark can be used to make a dye. The wood has been used to make bows, giving this tree an alternate name bois d' arc or bodark.
Red maple (Acer rubrum)
Colored Pencil | Robin Menard
The red maple tree (Acer rubrum) is also known as a scarlet maple, swamp maple, or soft maple. It is one of the most abundant and widespread hardwood trees in North America. The red maple tree is deciduous, and it loses its leaves every year in the fall then grows new leaves in the spring. Red maple leaves are 2 to 5 inches opposite, simple leaf with 3 to 5 lobes; often triangular shape; variability fall color from tree to tree - yellow, yellow-green, orange to red. The rosey maple moth and caterpillar is also depicted in this portrait.
Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis)
Colored Pencil | Trudy Rehbock
The Sycamore tree's most distinguishing feature is its bark. It is easily identifiable with blotchy brown to green to grey bark which peels to show smooth white inner bark. It is a common tree, and because it is able to withstand harsh conditions and pollution, it is very popular for planting in cities. It is deciduous with green, palmate leaves with five toothed lobes.
Trembling (or Quaking) aspen (Populus tremuloides)
Colored Pencil and Graphite | Melissa Fabian
Aspens can be identified by their smooth, white bark marked by black scars where lower branches are naturally self-pruned. Their leaves are somewhat heart shaped, with finely saw-toothed margins and range in size from 1.25-3" (3-8 cm) long. The leaves attach to branches via a long and flattened petiole, so that even the slightest breeze causes the leaves to flutter. This gives the overall tree the appearance that it is quaking or trembling–hence the common name Quaking Aspen and the scientific name's specific epithet–tremuloides. In the spring and summer, leaves are glossy green on the upper surface and dull green underneath. In the fall leaves turn yellow, gold, and in rare instances, even red. Quaking
Aspen are remarkable and unique trees. A stand of aspen is really only one huge organism where the main life force is underground. Think of aspens as large 1-20 acre systems of roots that remain hidden underground until there's enough sunlight. Then the roots sprout up trunks that then sprout leaves. This is called "vegetative" or asexual reproduction. The other aspect that makes them unique is that beneath the thin white outer bark is a thin photosynthetic green layer that allows the plant to synthesize sugars and keep growing even during the winter when all other deciduous trees go into dormancy. This green layer of the bark makes it survival food for deer and elk during hard winters. (Description from National Park Service/Bryce Canyon)
Tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera)
Watercolor | Donna Edmonds
Native to Eastern North America, this deciduous tree is one of the tallest and most beautiful of the eastern hardwoods. The tree grows with a long straight trunk, soaring to 150 feet under ideal conditions. Its uniquely tulip-shaped leaves are hairless, long-stalked, shiny green above, paler below, with four to six pointed, paired lobes, turning yellow to gold to golden-brown in the fall. Showy flowers are produced in early summer, well after the leaves develop. Historically valued because it is softer and more workable than many hardwoods, pioneers hollowed out a single massive log to make a long, lightweight canoe. Today, while the flowers provide a valuable source of nectar, the tree is valued for its desirable form and tall height which produces a high volume of commercial grade hardwood used for furniture, crates, toys, musical instruments, and pulpwood.
White oak (Quercus alba)
Watercolor and Colored Pencil | Mary Reefer
The white oak (Quercus alba) is a deciduous tree that typically reaches heights of 80 to 100 feet at maturity; its canopy can become quite massive. It can be found in forests amongst other oaks. White oak may live 200 to 300 years and may not produce large crops of acorns until its 50th year.
The leaves grow to be 5 to 9 inches long with 7 to 9 rounded lobes. They turn red or brown in autumn and some may remain on the tree throughout the winter, providing cover for many birds and small mammals. The bark is light gray and has a tendency to form overlapping scales, which aid in identification. White oaks have both male and female flowers that appear in May when leaves are 1/3 grown. Male flowers are 4 to 5 inch-long catkins, and female flowers are inconspicuous reddish spikes found in the axels of leaves. The fruit is an inch-long acorn with a scaly cap and matures in one year. Because it is less bitter than acorns of the red oak group, it is a valuable wildlife food.
White oak wood is used by coopers to make wine barrels used in the aging of wine. It is also used in construction, shipbuilding, agricultural tools and in the interior finishing of houses. It is valued for its density, strength and resiliency.
There is a long list of pests associated with this tree, none of which are fatal. The jumping oak gall is caused by a small wasp, which lays its eggs on the undersurface of the leaf. When the larva is mature in the summer, the gall falls to the ground where its movement causes the gall to jump. Oak leaf miners are larvae of tiny moths that feed between the leaf surface and form irregularly shaped mines. The oak twig girdler is a beetle, the female of which chews a groove around a small twig and lays an egg beneath the bark of the severed portion. The girdled portion dies and falls to the ground where the larva matures.
Yellow buckeye (Aesculus flava)
Colored Pencil | Sharon Arffa
Aesculus flava, the yellow buckeye, is a species of deciduous tree. It is native to the Ohio Valley and Appalachian Mountains of the Eastern United States. It can reach a height of 75 to 100 feet. The leaves are palmate with five (and occasionally seven) leaflets. The flowers occur in panicles in the spring, are yellow to yellow-green, and have stamens shorter than the petals. The flowers are 6 to 7 inches long and 2 to 3 inches wide. The fruit is a spineless, round, or oblong capsule containing one to three nut-like seeds.
