Identify the Trees in Green-Wood

 If you want to identify the trees in Green-Wood Cemetery like I have, I recommend Sibley's guide.

Oakland Cemetery in Iowa City

As I finish my final months in Iowa City, I'm creating a blog about trees in lovely Oakland Cemetery.

Check it out: Oakland Cemetery Trees.

Fall Foliage Tour

Next Sunday, October 30 at 11 a.m. come to the main entrance at Green-Wood for a fall tree tour led by yours truly and sponsored by the Indoor Gardening Society.

Fringe tree

Chionanthus virginicus in bloom on May 31.

Tree Painter Glenn Smith

Meet Glenn Smith, painter of Green-Wood's trees.

Fall Foliage

Get to Green-Wood to check out the fall foliage while the colors are at their brightest.

According to foliage calendars and reports, Brooklyn is supposed to peak around the last week of this month. (Image from Colliding Galaxies.)

Golden Chain Tree

 

Laburnum anagyroides

Chinese fringetree

Chionanthus retusus

Horse Chestnut

Right now, if you went into Green-Wood and looked at a horse chestnut, you'd see branches with big sticky terminal buds. Inside the buds contain the beginnings of the flower panicles you'll see in spring. For more peeks inside a horse chestnut bud, go to the blog "Beyond the Human Eye."

Doors

Dawn Redwood

The dawn redwood, or Metasequoia, is dropping its leaves.

Golden Rain Tree

The yellow clusters of Koelreuteria flowers gave way in the summer to balloon-like green pods...




which all turned brown a couple weeks ago.

Persimmon

The persimmon in bloom.

Pear

Pears are in the genus Pyrus. The pears we eat come from trees in this genus, but most of the pear trees planted along streets and in gardens are just decorative. The fruit they make is very small and probably not very tasty.

Stinkier than a ginkgo? I'm not sure which tree's scent is more repulsive. The pear has deceiving looks. These globular panicles of white flowers draw you towards the trees, promising beauty and lightness... and then the stench hits you.

I like the contrast of the immature purple anthers against the white petals.

Sedum

I was a little surprised to see this sedum. I usually think of succulents as being warm-climate plants, but this sedum is cold hardy. It was growing on both sides of a headstone. This discovery led me to do some reading, and I've learned that some sedum are cold hardy to 30 below zero!