Let there be trees!

[muckefuck]

I got a surprise on Monday night as I was heading for class (by way of a phở restaurant in an attempt to stave off a cold): Trees! While I was at work, a two-block stretch of Argyle had been assaulted by a Streets & San crew, who had cut about twenty 2' x 2' sections out of the sidewalks at regular intervals and planted them with saplings. I took a sampling of tags and found that they seemed to be an assortment of:

• Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba, a.k.a. "maidenhair tree")
• Northern Catalpa (Catalpa speciosa, a.k.a. "cigartree")
• Kentucky Coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus, another tree with big seed pods)
• Honeylocust (Gleditsia triacanthos, a.k.a. "pod tree" if you're juniperesque)
• And something called a "Chicago Blue Black Locust" (some local varietal of Robinia pseudoacacia?)

We'll see how they do; it's a heavily-trafficked area not known for its hospitality towards living things. Also, the plants got in the ground just before the first freeze; there was snow on the ground today--snow! Only a dusting, but a rather surprising sight all the same.

Comments

[sconstant.livejournal.com]

New trees! I like catalpa and the honeylocust. I'm not a big fan of ginkgo, they're spindly narrow and you have to hope for boy ginkos, because ginko fruit is sticky and stinky, imho.

Maybe the last is a pseudopseudoacacia?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Myself, I was thinking perhaps Robinia taxpayersblindo var. Daleii.

[tyrannio.livejournal.com]

You can graft male cuttings onto rootstock of either sex, so you don't have to hope for anything other than the city's landscaping people being competent: see, e.g., here.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've always assumed that the female ginkgos I see (such as that notorious clump by Botany Pond) were all planted before people twigged to this.

[foodpoisoningsf.livejournal.com]

And it's too bad they did. Over the past few decades, only male trees have been planted in urban areas, like your sidewalk, because they're supposedly "cleaner." So they generate huge amounts of pollen, which accounts for the increase in allergies. I'm trying to think of a human analogy, and all I come up with is "prison" so I'm going to stop while I'm ahead.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

I'm going to look up the Kentucky Coffee Tree. I keep hearing about it, but I'm not sure I'd recognize it.