Trees

Years ago, a friend in Uwharrie showed me a crooked tree on his family’s property. Its trunk was bent at two right angles, creating a horizontal span about 4 feet off the ground. He said they called it their “ducker-header” tree. Their clever terminology came to mind again recently when I learned about the Trail […]

In 1963, the General Assembly boldly proclaimed the official state tree of North Carolina would be – drum roll, please – the pine. What? You have to wonder why they didn’t bestow the honor on a particular species. Perhaps it’s typical of politicians who avoid taking a clear stand on an issue. In fairness, they […]

In Looking for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American Forest, Lawrence Earley traced the changes in society and technology that reduced a swath of forest once covering 92 million acres to isolated pockets totaling less than 3 million acres today. In telling the story of the longleaf, the former editor of Wildlife in […]

If trees could talk, what stories they’d tell. They’ve been silent witness to children shinnying up their branches and young lovers picnicking beneath their shade. They endure, watching over us from cradle to grave, and beyond. Charlotteans have a strong affinity with their trees, and for good reason. The city has some 160,000 street trees, […]

Last year, we revived a family tradition – we cut a cedar for our Christmas tree. When I was a kid, my parents, my sister and I would bundle up and scour the options along our field margins. Dad was always willing to take the first one we came to. If it was too big, […]

Tea has been synonymous with political protest ever since colonists dumped shiploads of the stuff into Boston Harbor in a 1773 act of rebellion against the Crown. In historian Eric Rutkow’s recent book, American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation, he notes that trees were an equally potent symbol of liberty in […]

At first glance, Eastern hardwood forests seem a homogenous block of green, but if you train your eye and look closer, you’ll notice subtle differences. Wild North Carolina: Discovering the Wonders of Our State’s Natural Communities helps amateur naturalists do just that. Botanist Michael Schafale describes more than two dozen unique communities, several of which […]

Photos by Ruth Ann Grissom Related article: The abundant diversity of the hardwood forest

My grandparents depended on fireplaces and a wood-fired cookstove to heat their farmhouse in the Uwharries. Today many of us have the luxury of turning down our thermostats on winter evenings when we want to enjoy the pleasures of a roaring fire. There’s the faint aroma of hickory and oak, the logs shifting and settling […]

The largest known stand of old-growth Piedmont longleaf pine remaining in the state will be preserved as an education forest, protected from development. The LandTrust for Central North Carolina and the N.C. Zoological Park last month completed their purchase of the 116-acre property in northern Montgomery County. Longleaf pine forests historically covered more than 90 […]