August 9, 2025

This Week's Tour...

...met at 9:00AM Saturday in front of Inman Perk coffeeshop (240 North Highland Ave NE). 

"The Tourists"...
What a great group of Atlantans (and nearly Atlantans…Fairburn in the house! Happy 3 years together!). I hope I earned the privilege of your time.

Pic of the week...
...is actually me "stumping" for a podcast!!

Completely Arbortrary is a great resource for all things tree. It's just 2 guys that love trees and hope you want to listen. This episode - "All Trees Go To Heaven (American Beech)" - partially inspired some of this month's tour content. 

Tree of the week...
...is going to be a repost of 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.

Prunus serotina

Q: We see non-native, fruiting cherry trees along the Beltline (not planted by Trees Atlanta); are there any species of cherry tree native to the eastern U.S.?

A: Sort of! Folks from the western U.S. might be familiar with "Rainier" cherries (Prunus avium), "a premium type of cherry...sweet with a thin skin and thick creamy-yellow flesh." It is a cultivar that is grafted to rootstock of the wild Prunus avium, native to Eurasia. 

So the long answer is: there isn't a cherry similar to "Rainier" that is native to Atlanta, but being a grafted cultivar, "Rainier" itself isn't native to anywhere! But there is a type of "cherry" native to our region; Prunus serotina. But - and this is an even BIGGER BUT - despite its common name, it is not very closely related to commonly cultivated cherries. It does fruit, it does support hundreds of native species, and it can be VERY invasive...so be very careful when introducing a native "cherry" to our ecosystem.