The Vollintine Evergreen Greenline

The Vollintine Evergreen Greenline runs along Mignon between McLean and Evergreen in my neighborhood. It continues east to Rhodes College at University Ave at Jackson. Going west it runs toward The Crosstown Concourse building. It is a favorite jogging path and dog walking route.

Greenline entrance Nov. 5, 2016 University and Jackson

The section near Mignon has many plaques naming some of the trees. I met a man named Scott walking his two terriers (they looked like wire fox terriers) who said the tree names were a project headed up by Mike Kirby and Mary Wilder both of Idlewild that runs into the greenline. I am posting a few of these labeled trees and one unknown tree that I will try to identify.

Tree # 105 Mockernut hickory (Carya tomentosa)

The bole of a split trunk along with the sign

Mockernut hickory trunk and leaves

The leaves are pinnately compound with opposite leaflets on a stem. This is also seen in other members of the family like walnuts, pecans and butternut. The hickory nut is edible.

Tree # 106 White fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus)

The fringe tree has clusters of leaves that resemble the smoketree.
Please see the link to that entry. However, these two trees are in different families. The fringe tree is in the same family as the ash trees shown here (The olive family).

This was taken in cloud cover. Earlier in the morning the sun was behind the leaves really lighting them up.

A shot from the street

A more complete view, Nov. 5, 2016

 Tree # 107 White ash (Fraxinus americana)

A pleasing fall view of this white ash

 Tree # 108 Green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica)

Whole tree from Mignon

Seed clusters similar to maple seeds

 

V & E greenline bench with the Choo Choo logo.

The greenline used to be a railroad that went to the old Sears Crosstown distribution center. The Crosstown building is being revived as a new exciting medical, commercial and residential site with 1,000,000 sq. ft. of space. Church Health will be on the first three floors and upper levels will have "parcels" for residential living. My daughter will be moving in to one of these. 

Tree # 109 Silver maple (acer saccharinum)

A large trunk with roots spreading out above the ground

A very attractive tree somewhat hidden along the greenline

Tree # 109b probable silver maple (second example)

Rough scaly somewhat orange bark

The double trunk lifts two parallel massive trees to the sky.

Because this tree is in the woods it is a bit hard to get a leaf shot. Here is one in a sky background.

The leaf shown here has very deeply dividing lobes with three main lobes and two shallow ones at the base. This is most like a silver maple leaf.

The bugs have been busy chewing these leaves

Tree #110 Red mulberry (Morus rubra)

Across the trail from the mockernut hickory there are two mulberry trees. There are three species of mulberrys that these two trees could be. Paper mulberry, white mulberry and red mulberry. The red mulberry is native to this region and the Choctaw indians used the bark to make woven cloaks. One distinquishing character is the upper surface of the leaves. Paper and red mulberry are rough above due to hairs on the surface. White mulberry is green shiny above without the hairs. That matches the second tree which we predict is a white mulberry. This current tree has the rough leaf surface so it could be paper or red mulberry. These can be identified by the fruit. Paper mulberry has a spherical fruit while white mulberry has a cylindrical fruit. No fruit was available to examine, but it seems more likely that this is a native tree, the red mulberry. 

The whole tree with large leaves quite apparent

The bark on the red mulberry is much rougher than the bark on the white mulberry.

The leaves are large and very rough on the top, some have two or three lobes.

 

Another view of the same tree

Tree #111 White mulberry (Morus alba)

The leaves are much smaller on this tree compared to the red mulberry and the bark is smoother. The trees are only about 8 feet apart and they do spread from the roots, so at first I thought they might be a clone pair. However, there are significant differences between them. I do not think they are the same species.
 

 

Shiny green leaves are smooth on the top and smaller than red mulberry leaves.

The bark is smoother on this tree than the red mulberry

Mulberry by van Gogh, I am curious about the stone at the base. Is it a gravestone?

Please see this LINK to learn more about the van Gogh painting (1889). It was a tree in the garden at the asylum he went to after cutting off his ear. It was painted less than a year before he died.

The neighborhood is anticipating the opening of the Crosstown Concourse in early 2017. Some people will be able to walk to work there on the greenline. For now it is a sleepy trail most of the time and a place for a leisurely stroll with our Schnauzer Rosie.

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.
 

Mugo pine

Tree # 103 Mugo pine

On Halloween last year I began construction of a 10x12 foot Japanese garden surrounded by a moat. The moat has is 15 inches deep with twin waterfalls on each side. We just finished construction and planting this past weekend (June 12, 2016). One requirement in a Japanese garden is a pine, but since this is a small space we needed a small pine.  Mugo pine (Pinus mugo, strain Big Tuna) was our choice. This one came from Dabney Nursery on Hacks Cross Rd.

Japanese garden with dry creek, lantern, gravel pond, maple and pine.

The dry creek is formed from beach pebbles and lined with mondo grass. The lantern is bracketed with three false cypress. Other ground covers are creeping jenny (light green) and ajuga (front right below the pine). The rock next to the gravel pond has moss on it. When we brought this home the moss was stiff and black. It looked dead. But see below.

Note the moss on the rock is now green and soft.

Once the garden was watered the moss on the rock magically transformed into lush soft green moss. We timed this and it takes less than one minute for the moss to revive. 

This is my second mugo pine. The first one was added to our yard at Satinwood Dr. back in 1995. Unfortunately, we planted it near a chipmunk burrow. The chipmunk was a connoisseur of mugo pine roots and he killed the tree rather quickly. We have no chipmunks now. Hoping for a better outcome. 

The PVC pipe is connected to a 1600 gallon per hour pump to power the waterfalls. The moat is now empty since I am trying to fix a leak. The water rapidly leaks out and since the tile is porcelain, it must be leaking out through the grout. I have sealed the grout three times with a solvent based sealer and this did not work. I am switching to a water based stone sealer to try to stop the mysterious leak. No obvious cracks or holes are visible so I must assume the grout is acting like a porous material and the water is just filtering through it. 

The next step in this process is to make a wooden planter of rough cypress boards to cover the PVC pipe and the pump. Yellow irises will be placed in the planter. I wanted yellow flag, but I was not able to get that in town. Louisiana irises will have to do until I might find a source of yellow flag. The University of Washington pharmacy gardens in Seattle has yellow flag in their pond and it is fantastic (Entrance to the UW Pharmacy garden). I am trying to reproduce that look. In King Co. Washington yellow flag iris is listed as a class C noxious weed. What a pity. I guess Washingtonians are more interested in another kind of weed.

Candle bush (Senna alata or Acacia alata)

Tree # 102 Candle bush

In July my wife Susan and I moved to midtown to Tutwiler Ave. a few blocks west of Snowden School. Late in the year we went on a walk to Jackson Ave. and turned East toward Rhodes College. This led us past a surprising find, not seen before or since in Memphis. The plant is a candle bush. The native home for this legume is Mexico.

Large pinnate leaves wet after a rain, also called a candelabra bush for reasons you can see.

 The genus Senna is very close to my daughter's name Sienna, a happy coincidence.

A little closer view Dec. 8, 2015

Spikes of yellow flowers (racemes), surprising in early December.

The flowers seem to be opening still with many more blooms to come. Odd since this looks like a tropical plant, but it is in Memphis, just northwest of Jackson and Barksdale.

Some views of the foliage

 This is a medicinal plant also called ringworm bush because it has anti-fungal properties and has been used to treat ringworm. Another member of this genus Senna quinquangulata was an early source of the compound resveratrol. This is now well known as a component of red wine that got an early reputation as an anti-ageing drug, but sadly this has no credible support. For a short while it was a great excuse for drinking red wine.

Reaching up to the light. Note these are not leaves on the stem, but seedpods.

I went back to find the plant again in June 2016 but I could not find it. I am wondering if it died or was replaced.