Chinese pistache

Tree # 104 Chinese pistache

Our new house is on Tutwiler Ave. This street has a median which is in the care of the city of Memphis. One of our neighbors, Connie, is the horticulturalist for the City of Memphis Park Services. They are responsible for 163 parks in Memphis and 140 median strips. One of the many trees on our median, Connie informs me, is the Chinese pistache (Pistacia chinense). 

Chinese pistache tree July 3, 2016, Tutwiler median.

There are 12 of these trees on the Tutwiler median between Evergreen and Rhodes College. These are good trees for public places since they do well with very little maintenance and they are drought tolerant. In the fall they turn orange (I will supply a new picture in a few months).

The leaves are pinnate (see below) and the trees form flower spikes (panicles) in the spring before the leaves appear. It seems like the tree took a long time to finally leaf out in full.

Closeup of the pinnate leaves similar to pecan, walnut, with the remains of flower spikes.

 The trees are nicely shaped like a sphere. Here is another view of the same tree.

View from the southeast

 The trunk goes up about 4-5 feet then branches, making a lollipop on a stick shape.

View of the trunk

This is not the pistachio tree. That is Pistacia vera. The pistache is a member of the cashew family (Anacardiaceae)  that also includes the smoketree (our tree #101) as well as poison ivy (vine #3). In the Carribbean the black poisonwood tree (Metopium brownei ) is from this family and contains the same chemical as poison ivy urushiol. The black poisonwood trees are often marked along trails to keep people from accidentally touching them. In the book "The Poisonwood Bible", Reverend Price has a bout with a poisonwood tree and it does not go well for him. The chemical allergen urushiol gets its name from lacquer trees (urushi). Sap from these trees (and the dried resin) is used to make lacquerware. One might suspect that being a Japanese lacquerware manufacturer might be a hazardous occupation.

Looking back at pictures from this spring, I had some photos of this tree on March 28, 2016. These show the bare branch structure just as the flowers were beginning to come out.

Chinese pistache March 28, 2016, notice the daffodils in the median.

The median has daffodils that are very dense and attractive in Feb. and March. The city comes after they are done and weed eats them down to the base. We observed one woman coming in her car who was getting out and cutting the daffodils to take away. We tried chase her off, but she just came back when she thought we were gone and continued to cut the daffodils.