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.

Morning glory vine

Vine #7 Morning glory (Ipomoea nil or Asagao in Japan)

The new house on Tutwiler has some surprise vegetation we are discovering. There is a pale blue morning glory vine growing on a fence and nearby rose bush. 

 

Chapter 20 in the Tale of Genji is titled Asagao. Genji tries to have an affair with the princess Asagao but is rebuffed.
"He paid a visit to Princess Asagao, whose name meant "the morning glory". Her attitude was very stiff and formal. He came back and lay awake with disappointment. He had the shutters raised early and stood looking out at the morning mist. He broke off a morning glory in the garden and sent it to Asagao with a poem saying, "I wonder if the flower has been taken past its bloom".

Hiding behind a showy competitor Sept. 6, 2015

The color combination between the green and the violet is very pleasing.

After an accident broke this sundial, we left it as our own Greco-Roman ruins.

 

The morning glory is a popular flower in Japan. The older literature and paintings referred to an intense yellow variety, but in modern day Japan there are no yellow morning glories. For some reason they have gone extinct. To set matters right the Suntory Brewery Co. (Suntory Global Innovation Center Co., Ltd.) did genetic engineering on a morning glory to add back a missing enzyme (aureusidin synthase) needed to make the yellow pigment. They thereby restored the fabled phantom yellow morning glory of old. Suntory has also made blue carnations and blue roses by a similar method (different enzyme).

The enzyme added came from snapdragon and it converts a chalcone in morning glories to an aurone, a bright yellow pigment. The basic scaffolds of these molecules are shown here.

see this link

Another plant in the same genus is Ipomea batatas. This is the sweet potato. Not unexpectedly the flowers look very similar.

Sweet potato flower

For more info on morning glories visit "A Wandering Botanist"

Bottlebrush buckeye

Tree # 87b Bottlebrush buckeye

We recently moved (June 17) to Tutwiler in the Evergreen Vollintine neighborhood in midtown. Our next door neighbors Steve and Rose have a flowering tree that was hard not to notice. It is a bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parviflora). In mid June it was in full bloom. It is said that hummingbirds come to the flowers. This may be true here also since my wife saw some hummingbirds in our garden visiting red ginger flowers.

June 18, 2015 the greenery with just a few flower spikes in the top center

We have a screened in porch that is the closest we will get to the legendary southern verandah. In front of the porch there are three tiers of beds that suggest all kinds of possibilities, however my wife Susan reminds me that we need a low maintenance garden as we are not particularly hobbit-like in our nature.

From the street the buckeye flowers seem to be seeking the next roof

A sky background shows off the brush-like character of the flower stalks

A few con trails add to the composition with the leaves in dark relief

I had posted buckeye photos before (see tree #57 red buckeye April 18, 2014 at this link and tree #87 bottlebrush buckeye July 5&13, 2014 at this link).

Vine #6    Crossvine 

I found this vine covering a mailbox on Summer Grove near the intersection with Morning grove (East of Sanga Rd. in Cordova). The leaves have veins branching from a central vein so they are definitely not clematis that has more parallel veins. The tendrils are also finer than clematis tendrils. I have not been able to find a matching image and the description of vines from the southeast do not seem to match it very closely. If you know what this vine is please leave a comment. I did ask some friends of ours who live near it and drive by it every day if it flowers and what color the flowers are. (see below for the answer)

Cousin It in plant form

June 7, 2015 Do you want to put your hand in there?

Looking north along Summer Grove

Closeup of the leaves and new growth
 

My friend John went back and found a flower on July 17, 2015.

A buttery five-petalled flower with a vase-like base

Closer view looking down the throat. Imagine you are a bee.

Back to give some perspective

This finally allowed me to identify this vine as crossvine from the trumpet-creeper family. Thanks John. For a mailbox vine this seems superior to clematis that is forever falling over onto the ground.

American smoketree

Tree #101 American smoketree

On my way to help move my son to a new house I drove past a new tree that I had not seen before. It had large feathery pink flower spikes that gave it a very soft look.

Smoketree in bloom May 30, 2015, 4191 Kimball in Memphis between Rebecca and Merrycrest

I had lost track of my camera, but when I found it this week in a suit pocket I decided to go back and take some photos of this tree and try to identify it. I finally found a picture that matched it on the web. Scientific name: Cotinus coggygria

flower spikes and leaves

Close up of the flower spikes

Some branches shot up away from the rest like a Dr. Seuss invention

“I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.”
― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

In spring 2016 my wife and I went to eat at Caritas Village in Binghampton (on Harvard St.) where we saw this pair of trees in full bloom. The leaves are not the same so this is not a smoketree, but it has that same feathery look to it.