Leaves

Day 309: Here's a quick lesson in basic botany, presented in the form of a visual quiz. Don't worry, you won't be graded on your response.

We talk about leaves in many ways, throwing around words like "serrulate" and "runcinate" to describe their margins, referring to their tips as "cirrose," "aristate" and so on, "obelliptic" and "flabellate" for their shapes, but in the most elementary terms, leaves can be placed in one of two categories: simple or compound. A simple leaf is just that: it has a central vein and if it is lobed (think of an oak leaf), the most deeply cut portion of the lobes do not reach the central vein. It is generally attached to the main stem of the plant by a petiole (stalk). Please note that I said "generally." Sessile (stalkless) forms do occur. A compound leaf is made up of multiple leaflets arising from a single petiole, and compound leaves can be palmate (shaped like a hand) or pinnate (resembling a feather).

I promised you a quick lesson, so I won't go any further down the rabbit hole than this. From left to right, top row: 1) Golden Chain Tree, 2) Red Alder, 3) Sitka Mountain-ash; bottom row: 4) Vine Maple, 5) Philadelphus, 6) Horse Chestnut. Categorize these six leaves as follows: simple, palmately compound, pinnately compound.

And there. You learned a couple of new words in a relatively painless manner.

Answers: elpmis, evif, ruof, owt; dnuopmoc yletamlap, xis dna eno; dnuopmoc yletannip, eerht.

Chestnut Confusion

Day 361: How do you tell the difference between a horse chestnut (inedible, top) and an edible chestnut (bottom)? First of all, you should know that horse chestnuts belong to an entirely different genus (Aesculus) than true chestnuts (Castanea). However, certain physical similarities have given rise to the common name, and also are reflected in the taxonomy, i.e., Aesculus castanum (think "castanets," a term from the same root word). There are several different species of edible chestnut in the US, and since many are hybrids, I won't go farther than simply lumping them all together under "Castanea." The leaves of the horse chesnut tree are palmate, which is to say they are arranged like fingers on a hand. Those of true chestnuts are alternate, i.e., they are arranged along the stem singly, each leaf pointing away from the ones nearest it. The burr which encloses the nut is quite spiky in true chestnuts; horse chestnuts have fewer spines and look like the head of a mediaeval mace. The burrs of Aesculus (horse chestnut) split into halves, releasing a round "conker" from inside, as opposed to those of Castanea which split into twos or fours depending on species to reveal up to three nuts with pointed tips. Unfortunately, my description of edible chestnuts is going to have to end here because none of those I found beneath the trees had developed fully. All I could find were empty brown husks, no chestnuts to roast, sorry!

Pawn Your Horse

Day 360: I hope to follow this post with another comparing horse chestnuts to edible chestnuts, but I did not think to photograph the leaves of the several species which stand in Morton's Gust Backstrom Park. Nor did I think to gather any of the fallen fruit (fruit?) from beneath the trees, possibly because my only previous attempt at roasting chestnuts was unsuccessful. Thanks to YouTube, I now know a better way to go about it and am kicking myself for not collecting enough for a culinary experiment. In any event, these are horse chestnuts, Aesculus hippocastanum, inedible and mildly toxic, related to Lychees and sometimes called "conkers." True chestnuts are members of the genus Castanea. The nuts are easy to differentiate when in the husk; true chestnuts resemble large, thickly spiny burrs whereas horse chestnuts have fewer spines.

Bitten By The Gardening Bug

Day 181: Over the last two days, I have planted juniper tams, dug and transplanted a small fig tree, relocated the tomato pot (sunk to its waist in soil), sunk a second pot into which I moved a blueberry bush, relocated two of five horse chestnut trees to their permanent locations, stretched over 100 feet of weed barrier fabric, spread five bags of bark mulch, weeded the raspberries and laid weed barrier around them, and in all, have shovelled what surely must have been at least two 15-yard dump truck loads of dirt (I exaggerate, but my back and arms don't believe it) and busted enough sod that it's a wonder I have any grass left (but I do, and it needs mowing). The catch? I'm probably less than halfway done with the chores I've outlined for the yard and garden this year. Do I have a showplace yard? Not hardly! I love to work the soil, but I'm not much on keeping up appearances. There are no Joneses to keep up with, but if there were, I have the best crop of dandelions in the neighborhood.

Horse Chestnut Raid

Day 262: Once I've got it in my craw to act, everybody better just get the hell out of my way. After I had to take the Whatzit Tree out because it was diseased, I started looking for something to replace it. I decided I wanted a tree which would mature to have a broad crown, i.e., a "shade tree." I had a couple of things in mind.

The "last resort" option was a big-leaf maple, not one of my favourite trees. They're too prone to breaking in the wind. Other choices included a black walnut, horse chestnut or a catalpa. The latter two grow fairly rapidly.

There was one other stipulation to the Quest: shoestring budget. "Cheap" was okay. "Free" was better.

I checked a couple of open spaces where I'd seen black walnuts growing. Nope, no seedlings. Then I paid a visit to a park with catalpas. I brought home several pods and planted the seeds. They're currently chilling in the fridge. I'm also experimenting with a hardwood cutting.

All of this aside, I struck gold yesterday. I was on my way home from kayaking at Lake St. Clair and spotted dozens of little baby horse chestnuts growing on the road verge beneath a parent tree which was on private property. If the county mowed, the seedlings would be doomed. I had to act promptly, and thus I let a plant raid dictate my other activities today.

About 9 AM when traffic was fairly light, I parked nearby and crossed the road, trowel and plastic bags in hand. Ten minutes later, I returned to the car with half a dozen horse chesnut trees which I immediately put in a bucket of soil brought expressly for that purpose and dumped a quart of water on them. Then I went bicycling because the trailhead was only a mile or so away. Several hours later, I got back to the car. It was like an oven inside, but the horse chestnuts were happy and showing no signs of wilt. I potted them up in gallons as soon as I got home.