HGG: Witch Hazel

In another installment Home Grown Greenery we take a look at witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). Witch-hazel has a number of traits that help it steal the limelight, including smooth grey bark, attractive architecture, and colorful fall foliage. But the real show stopper comes when you least expect it. As November approaches and most respectable plants have dropped their leaves and gone to seed, Hamamelis virginiana bursts forth in floristic splendor. Clusters of small pale yellow blooms, each with four streamer-like petals, hug the twigs. Some flowers may linger on the branches into December.

In the wild, Hamamelis virginiana is a common shrub of North America’s eastern deciduous forest, making it an easy plant to get to know during a casual walk in the woods.

Slow growing and multistemmed, witch-hazel typically reaches heights of 15 to 20 feet. The shrub has a full, rounded crown and an attractive vase-shaped habit. Its bark—thin, smooth, and gray—is quite attractive and adds interest to the winter garden. In the shade of canopy trees, witch-hazel exhibits zigzag branching and may look as though it were roaming for light, which it is. Its branching pattern and its leaves—which are held perpendicular to the sun—make it a good competitor for the limited light found in the understory.

The leaves themselves are decorative. Broadly oval with scalloped edges and inverted V-shaped venation, they grow up to six inches long and mature from deep green to a rich golden color in fall. Scientists have speculated that the leaves are a food source for larvae of an endangered moth, Acronicta hamamelis. One definite leaf eater is the witch-hazel leaf gall (Hormaphis hamamelidis). To house its eggs, this aphid chews through the leaf underside and secretes chemicals that lead to the formation of Hershey kisses-shaped galls.



Each individual witch-hazel blossom is functionally monoecious, meaning that it’s equipped with both sets of reproductive organs but acts as either a male (producing pollen only) or female (producing fruit only). Thus, any chance of self-fertilization is eliminated. Instead, the flowers use their showy petals and faint fragrance to attract pollinators to facilitate cross-fertilization. Small gnats and bees are the main pollinators, and they are rewarded for their labors with sugary nectar and sticky pollen.

Researchers suspect that the plant’s unusually late flowering period induces insects to pay extra special attention to the unique blossoms—after all, the flowers are the only game in town.

After pollination, actual fertilization of the seed is delayed until spring. The fruit develops during the regular growing season and is newly ripened as flowers begin to open in late autumn. The fruits develop into hard, fuzzy, tan-colored capsules, under an inch long, and they carry one or two dark shiny seeds. In fall, the capsules burst and eject their seeds up to 25 feet away, but they persist on the branches for a while, resembling baby birds, beaks agape, expecting a worm. If left undisturbed on the forest floor, the seeds will germinate two years after dispersal. In the interim, they might be eaten by songbirds or small mammals, or even the occasional bear.

The ideal garden setting for witch hazel is part sun to light shade with moist, slightly acidic, organically rich soils. While best flowering occurs in full sun, planting witch-hazel out in the open will subject it to scorching and burning. Balled-and-burlaped or container-grown specimens can be transplanted in spring or fall. As a landscaping element, individual plants are showy enough to stand on their own, but witch-hazel also works well when multiple specimens are grouped together.

More on Hamamelis virginiana

Invasive willow threatens wetlands, rare plants in East

Egads - another one.

From The Boston Globe

A European invader has been sneaking onto the New England coast, infiltrating and undermining the natives.

The large gray willow, a shrub or small tree that spreads rapidly and closely resembles our native pussy willow, has been flying under the radar for years, colonizing the edges of ponds and crowding out rare plants and animals throughout the eastern United States. It was just identified this spring.

Other countries that have been invaded by the species, Salix cinerea, also called the European gray willow, paint a grim picture. New Zealand considers it a major "pest plant". Australia calls it the worst of the invasive willows and warns it can cross-pollinate with other willows.

There is concern about the threat to coastal plain ponds that are host to a whole complex of rare insects, animals and plants, including the Plymouth gentian, rose coreopsis, hyssop hedge-nettle and slender marsh pink, as well as rare dragonflies and damselflies.

The European willow's presence is confirmed for Cape Cod and Rhode Island. It is expected to show up in coastal areas stretching from Maine to Long Island. The Harvard Herbaria in Cambridge, Mass., has a specimen collected in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, in 1967, so the willow has a lengthy head start on efforts to control it. (Yet ANOTHER reason why herbaria are so important!!)

The full article from The Boston Globe

More on Salix cinerea

Good Gardening: Medley

Solomon's seal (Polygonatum biflorum)

Solomon's seal, with it's tall, arching stems and showy foliage, is a statuesque addition to any shade garden. Once in the ground, they require very little attention.

Flowering dogwood (Cornus florida)

This is another example of why everyone should have a flowering dogwood...the rich fall foliage.

Evergreen woodfern (Dryopteris intermedia) and Sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis)

These ferns are attractive as border plantings in moist locations.

Mist flower (Eupatorium coelestinum)

Beloved by gardeners & butterflies alike, this easy-to-please member of the aster family (Asteraceae) is a rampant spreader, so give it lots of room.

Botanists battle aliens in Acadia park

The plant busters, an elite team of national park botanists, had come to the Great Meadow on a whirlwind mission to search and destroy some of the alien, invasive species that have put down stubborn roots in the park.

"The more you look, the more you see," Betsy Lyman of the Northeast Exotic Plant Management Team said while pointing out an undulating green sea of alder buckthorn saplings. "It's an endless task."
The scrubby alder buckthorn saplings immigrated from Europe sometime after the 1800s, she said.

They spread rapidly and may be detrimental to the local wildlife in part because their large purple berries are attractive to birds but don't provide nearly the amount of nutrition that Maine's native berries, like the winterberry, do.

"For birds, it's kind of like eating junk food," Linda Gregory, Acadia National Park botanist, said. "This is not great wildlife food."

Read the full article from the Bangor Daily News

HGG: Beach Plum

Beach plum (Prunus maritima) in fruit

Time for another installment of "Home Grown Greenery". I am partial to beach plums, for a number of reasons. As the name implies, this shrub haunts seaside dunes, and who doesn't like the shore? Due to the salt spray, the shrub develops branching patterns that resembles sculptured hewn from dark bark. It eventually creates large, suckering colonies that may reach 6 ft. in height. In spring, before the leaves unfurl, the branches are awash in scented white blooms & ecstatic insects. It's quite a spectacle for a plant whose natural surroundings are so spartan. Each individual blossom has five petals & numerous stamens, as do all members of the rose family (Rosaceae). By fall, these develop into dark blue fleshy fruits that are edible, but you must be quick! Birds also like plums. (To guarantee fruit set, plant more than one shrub.)

Along with other Prunus species, beach plum is the preferred larval host plant for several species of swallowtail butterflies (Papilio), along with the coral hairstreak (Harkenclenus titus), viceroy admiral (Limenitis), and spring azure (Celastrina argiolus).

Black knot (Apiosporina morbosa) is common on Prunus species. It is more aesthetically displeasing than deadly to the plants. Here are excellent photographs & a perkier review of the fungal infection.

The species is endangered in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. More about beach plum.

Rare Oak Woods, Staten Island


Early lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium pallidum) in flower. The flowers are always described as "white", but as you can see, they are so much more. A common NYC native shrub in dry, sandy soils.


Today I went to Conference House Park, to look for a site to plant rescued plants from Kreischerville up the road. These "rescued" plants are listed as rare in New York State - blunt spikerush (Eleocharis ovata) (S1) & fringed boneset (Eupatorium hyssopifolium var. laciniatum) (S2), which is the reason why we went to so much trouble to dig some up - otherwise they'd be sitting under the Home Depot, Target, Bed Bath Beyond, Chilis & Christmas tree store that was put there in its place. God knows we need more strip malls, especially sharing a very long border with a state nature preserve (Clay Pit).

Anyway, on my way to Conference House Park, I stopped by an area we refer to as "Rare Oak Woods" because it houses, wait for it, rare oaks. Onsite there are willow oaks (Quercus phellos), an S1, that are hybridizing with more common oaks (black, red). These hybrids can be prodigious producers of acorns, and subsequent generations often results in pure willow oak offspring. A super rare oak is the hybrid Q. x rudkinii, a cross between willow oak and blackjack oak (Q. marilandica), another rarity. Mostly these plants are rare in NY because they are at the northern part of their range. This also means that without all the hybridization, it would be difficult for them to reproduce. Ah, oaks. For more on NYS rare plants

Rare Oak Woods has very sandy, glacial outwash soils, as does this whole area of southern SI. This makes for really neat plant communities, with lots of heath shrubs. I love the heaths. Most people think of Heathcliff & Catherine ala Charlotte Bronte (writing out "Heathcliff" made me think of that Michael Penn song, "No Myth". I really like that song. Whatever happened to him anyway?); but the northeast has lots of native woody plants in this family (Ericaceae).


Highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) in flower, with a Lepidopteran visitor. Another common native shrub.

Yet another interesting plant was pawpaw (Asimina triloba), another rarity (S2). This tree isn't actually native to NYC, it naturally occurs in western New York State, but there is a colony in Staten Island, planted by a former homeowner in the 1800s with seed from Indiana. The grove produces flowers (see below) and fruits. The latter are edible, reputed to resemble bananas both in taste and aspect. Haven't tried any yet, but hopefully this summer I will remember to make a trip down there.


Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) in flower, native & rare in New York State.