•  See the bloom report from Ed our Color Scout.

•  We’ve kicked off our “Car-free Biking” seasonon the East Side. From now through September 9, 2012, the East Side will be closed to vehicles each Friday evening from 3:30 pm until sunset and each Saturday/Sunday morning from 7 -9 am.

•  Check out today’s weather hour by hour.

Name: Ron deVries
Email: rdevries@williamblair.com
Tree Species: Camamellia
Tree Height: 2′
Trunk Diameter: 1/2 inch
City: Wheaton

Can anyone identify this tree for me? Found in SE Michigan Basswood, Beech, Ash and Maple forest. Thanks!

The tree was too big for my yard, anyway. All you could see was the trunk, and the canopy was higher than my 3-story house.

Do you have any suggestions for planting a smaller, disease-resistant tree in my yard?

Thank you for your help.

Name: Mary
Email: marycimms@sbcglobal.net
Tree Species: White Ash
Tree Height: 70 feet
Crown Spread: huge
City: Elgin

The Checklist document is a working (i.e., unreviewed and unpublished) list of the vascular plants growing outside of cultivation at The Morton Arboretum and includes the adjacent Hidden Lake Forest Preserve. A version of the Checklist is now online . An updated link is also available on Andrew’s herbarium web page  .

For those of you who spend time on the grounds, this may be a useful starting point to see what plants have been documented previously. Because the list is currently based solely on our Herbarium collections, it will certainly be incomplete. Over time, we would like to update the Checklist with additional vouchered specimens.

If you find taxa growing spontaneously on the grounds but not appearing on our Checklist, please let us know. We will continue to make collections to keep improving our list. In the meantime, we hope it is useful to you. 

Andrew Hipp, PhD, and Jason Sturner
ahipp@mortonarb.org

The Checklist document is a working (i.e., unreviewed and unpublished) list of the vascular plants growing outside of cultivation at The Morton Arboretum and includes the adjacent Hidden Lake Forest Preserve. A version of the Checklist is now online . An updated link is also available on Andrew’s herbarium web page  .

For those of you who spend time on the grounds, this may be a useful starting point to see what plants have been documented previously. Because the list is currently based solely on our Herbarium collections, it will certainly be incomplete. Over time, we would like to update the Checklist with additional vouchered specimens.

If you find taxa growing spontaneously on the grounds but not appearing on our Checklist, please let us know. We will continue to make collections to keep improving our list. In the meantime, we hope it is useful to you. 

Andrew Hipp, PhD, and Jason Sturner

ahipp@mortonarb.org

Let’s look at a real example in the photo below. You’ll usually see three lines on the tree tag (the last line on this tag identifies the tree as being specially planted in honor of Arbor Day 2005). The first line contains the common or trade name for the tree used in the Midwest. Also displayed on this line are any trademark names associated with the plant, e.g., ACCOLADE™ Elm.

The second line shows the scientific name of the plant; e.g. Ulmus ‘Morton’. When part of the scientific name is enclosed in quotes, it signifies that the name is a cultivar. That means it is a horticultural selection available in the nursery trade – in this case ‘Morton.’

The third line provides three more pieces of information: the accession number, a symbol signifying the annotation status of the plant, and the location of the plant on the Arboretum grounds.

The accession number is a number given to the plant when it first arrives at the Arboretum, and it is displayed in the lower left of the label, e.g., 1095-2004*3. The accession number is made up of three parts: the yearly sequence number, the year received, and the individual plant number.

The example in the photo means that this plant is in the 1,095th group of plants, it was received in 2004, and this particular plant is the third plant out of the group. Next on the tag, you’ll see an abbreviation following the accession number. It indicates how the accession was received by the Arboretum:

buds – BD
cuttings – CT
divisions – DIV
grafts – GR
layers – LYR
whole plants – PLT
root cuttings – RTCT
seeds – SD
stolons – STLN.

In the next photo, you can see the letter T on the sample tag. It’s at the center of the third line on the tag and indicates that the plant is true-to-name. This means that a member of the Arboretum staff has looked at the plant, compared it with a written description of the name, and verified that it matches the description. If a label does not carry an annotation letter, it has not been verified by our staff. If you ever see an embossed letter “S” in the position of the “T,” it means that the label is one of our older ones, but the “S” has the same meaning as the letter “T”.

Lastly, the location of the plant on the Arboretum grid system is displayed in the lower right of the label, e.g., H-46/47-21. How does that work?

The Arboretum grounds are divided into 100-foot quadrates. Letters indicate grid lines running from south to north, while numbers indicate lines running from west to east. Plant locations are designated from their distance north and east of the point where grid lines intersect. For example, the ACCOLADE™ Elm at H-46/47-21 is located 47 feet North and 21 feet East of the intersection of the H and 46 lines. Staff members at the Visitor Center Information Desk can help you find and locate plants in our collections.

Here’s another look at Arboretum plant labels and how they work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/opinion/why-trees-matter.html?_r=1&hp