March 10, 2023

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"...
What a great group! Long time Virginia Highland neighbors! College kids visiting from Germany! Future Trees Atlanta docents! I hope I earned the privilege of your time.

Thanks for a great tour!

Pic of the week...
..rail lines and Terminal Station! Re-posted from Atlanta Time Machine, a very cool pic looking north, with old Atlanta Terminal status a little south of center:

1965 aerial from Atlanta Time Machine. Spring St. (now Ted Turner Dr.) and Mitchell St. second intersection up from lower right. Just to the left of center is the Atlanta Gas Light reservoir. The bladder is UP. Far left, center is Charles M. Mayson Plant, City of Atlanta incinerator. The garbage trucks went down Mangum St. to the incinerator. They burned twice a day. In this period the garbage collectors went in your backyard to pickup the garbage from, usually, galvanized steel cans. Lower right are the two Southern Railway buildings. Upper left of them is Terminal Station with the canopies over the passenger loading platforms..

Thanks, Atlanta Time Machine!!

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

The Georgia oak may not be our state tree, but it is 100% Georgia (well, maybe 90%);

"The Georgia oak is native to the southeastern United States, mainly in northern Georgia, but with additional populations in Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina.[4] It grows on dry granite and sandstone outcrops of slopes of hills at 50–500 m (160–1,640 ft) altitude.[5][2]

The tree was first discovered in 1849 at Stone Mountain, Georgia, where several stands of pure specimens grow along the popular walk-up trail at around 400 m (1,300 ft), near the large chestnut oak in the middle of the trail and before the rest pavilion halfway up the trail.[6] Georgia oaks are also found at nearby monadnocks, including Panola Mountain and Arabia Mountain in Georgia."

Pignut Hickory

 Carya glabra

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

Q: What are those dangly things (that we see hanging from oak branches in early spring)?

A: Jeff knew they were called "catkins", but wasn't sure of the botanical details. Here they are! 

Oaks have male flowers arranged in catkins that hang from the smaller branches. A catkin is an inflorescence where the flower parts are greatly reduced, and with these Georgia oak male flowers, the only thing visible are the paired stamens that will produce the pollen.

The female flowers, also greatly reduced with only sepals and pistil, are singly arranged on young branches. They produce one of the most distinctive fruits of all plants, the instantly recognizable acorn.