April 12, 2025

This Week's Tour...

...met at 9:00AM Saturday in front of Inman Perk coffeeshop (240 North Highland Ave NE). We walked for 1 1/2 hours, covering 1 mile of the Beltline, ending at Ponce City Market.

"The Tourists"...
What a great group! Braved the brisk spring weather! Especially those Florida transplants! I hope I earned the privilege of your time.

Thanks for a great tour!

Pic of the week...
...is a tree that’s easy to “love”…one of many with “heart” shaped leaves…the American basswood or linden.

The American basswood is a medium-sized to large deciduous tree reaching a height of 18 to 37 m (60 to 120 ft) exceptionally 39 m (128 ft) with a trunk diameter of 1–1.5 m (3–5 ft) at maturity. It grows faster than many North American hardwoods, often twice the annual growth rate of American beech and many birch species. Life expectancy is around 200 years, with flowering and seeding generally occurring between 15 and 100 years, though occasionally seed production may start as early as eight years

Thanks, Wiki!!

Tree of the week...
...is going to be ALL OF THEM.

One of our intrepid tourists was interested specifically in growing her tree identification knowledge. It can be tough during the winter, since leaves are such an integral part of identification, but here is the list of the trees I pointed out along the trail:

• Fringe trees (Chionanthus retusus)
• Chickasaw plum (Prunus angustifolia)
• Shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata)
• Cathedral live oak (Quercus virginiana)
• Georgia oak (Quercus georgiana)
• American Beech (Fagus grandifolia)
• Sawtooth oak (Quercus acutissima, non-native)
• Eastern Cottonwood (Populus deltoides)
• Pignut hickory (Carya glabra)
• Blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica..not sweet gum...ew)
• Lots of oaks (genus Quercus), including white swamp, southern red, chinquapin
• Carolina and Canada Hemlocks (Tsuga caroliniana and canadensis)
• Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora)
• Southern red oak (Quercus falcata)
• Scarlett oak (Quercus coccinea...remember Cochineal bugs...a source of red dye)
• - ...and then oak hill with all 33 native oak species

...and follow this link to Trees Atlanta's "Interactive Tree Inventory Map" to see them all!

Pignut Hickory

 Carya glabra

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

Stone Mountain, Georgia

Q1: What is the etymology of the word monadnock?

A1: From the name of Mount Monadnock in New England, which derives from an Abenaki word, perhaps menonadenak, menonadenek (“smooth mountain”) or menadenak, menadenek (“isolated mountain”),[1] from aden (“mountain”)

Q2: Great…then what is “Abenaki”?

A2: Western Abenaki was spoken in New Hampshire, Vermont, north-western Massachusetts, and southern Quebec.[4] Odanak, Quebec is a First Nations reserve located near the Saint-François River—these peoples were referred to as Saint Francis Indians by English writers after the 1700s.[5] The few remaining speakers of Western Abenaki live predominantly in Odanak and the last fully fluent speaker, Cécile (Wawanolett) Joubert died in 2006.[4] A revitalization effort was started in Odanak in 1994; however, as of 2004 younger generations are not learning the language and the remaining speakers are elderly, making Western Abenaki nearly extinct.[6]

Eastern Abenaki languages are spoken by several peoples, including the Penobscot of what is now Maine. The last known natively fluent speaker of Penobscot Abenaki, Madeline Shay, died in 1993.[7][8] However, several Penobscot elders still speak Penobscot, and there is an ongoing effort to preserve it and teach it in the local schools;[9] much of the language was preserved by Frank Siebert.[10] Other speakers of Eastern Abenaki included tribes such as the Amoscocongon who spoke the Arosagunticook dialect,[11] and the Caniba, which are documented in French-language materials from the colonial period.