October 8, 2022

 This Week's Tour...

...met at 9:00AM Saturday on the Beltline Eastside Trail near Parish (R.I.P...soon to reopen as "Painted Park"!). We walked for 1 1/2 hours, covering 1 mile of the Beltline, ending at Ponce City Market.

"The Tourists"...
...je voudrais crier a mes nouveaux amis! 3 voyageurs impressionnants de Marseille and an awesome Atlanta-based orchestra teacher!

Thanks for a great tour!

Map of the week...
..Trees Atlanta inventory map!

Trees Atlanta has planted over 150,000 trees in Atlanta...and they are ALL mapped here! Take a look...it is pretty cool and a great learning resource.

Thanks, Trees Atlanta!

Tree of the week...
...singling out one of the hundreds of specimens from the dozens of collections along the arboretum.

Hands down, the shrub that elicited the most chatter during our talk was the sumac found on "Succession Hill" next to Freedom Parkway and along the eastside of the trail as one approaches Ralph McGill. My new french besties were quick to point out that they use sumac as an acidic flavoring in cooking, especially in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines. I'm not advocating it, but it is certainly worth looking into!

"Made from the coarsely ground berries of a variety of sumac bush, it's used as much for its bright color and presentation as it is for its flavor, which is often described as slightly salty, tart citrus."

Smooth sumac

 Rhus glabra

"Stump" of the week...
...featuring a question raised during the tour that Jeff couldn't answer.

Q: You described the long low limbs of the live oak tree as supporting "spanish moss" and that we might know it from trees shown in spooky movies. We've seen it in movies...and it's a real thing? What exactly is Spanish moss?

A: Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is an epiphytic flowering plant that often grows upon large trees in tropical and subtropical climates. It is native to much of Mexico, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Central America, South America, the Southern United States, and West Indies.

Tillandsia usneoides

 Thanks, wiki!