Vine Love

Douglas Lucas — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:05:39 +0000

Team KAC DAL (our initials)

This is what to do with the remnants of vines you chop out of crepe myrtles. Those vines were so overgrown, by the way, that they effectively destroyed my hedge clippers — by the end of the afternoon, I’d wound up swinging the clippers like an axe.

Biggest Southern Magnolia in DFW

Douglas Lucas — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:24:23 +0000

The most impressive Southern Magnolia (Magnolia Grandiflora) in Dallas-Fort Worth lives at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden. The picture above shows a view of it from near one of the Garden roads (along with a few tiny, other trees). Many magnolias in Fort Worth are impressively tall — for example, the one pictured below, which grows next to the library of my alma mater, TCU — but the one at the Botanic Gardens is the best!

A TCU Library Magnolia

From some angles, the Garden’s huge magnolia can at first look like many trees, not one. That’s why I never(!) truly noticed it; I mistakenly saw a big stand of multiple trees, not a single special individual. This past May, however, Kate — a special individual herself – showed me one of the “secret entrances” to the “cave” made by the magnolia’s drooping branches.

: A Secret Entrance to the Big Magnolia Cave

Once you go through the secret entrance (no password necessary), you’ll see a scene like something out of Lord of the Rings or a King Arthur tale. This cave hides in plain sight near University Drive, one of the busiest streets in the city! Here’s a shot of it. The branches go all the way around, 360 degrees.

The Secret Magnolia Cave

Texas Tree Trails has a page with many facts and pictures about this particular magnolia. A few facts about the tree taken from that site and elsewhere:

As of 2004, the tree is 64 feet tall.
Leaf: Leathery top, fuzzy red-brownish underside, evergreen, alternate simple (whorling at tip), asymmetrical base, pinnately veined, oval-shaped, 5-8 inches long, untoothed margin.
Flower: Large (6-8+ inches wide), creamy white, fragrant. Borne singly, May-June.
Fruit: Cylindrical aggregate of follicles (“seed pod”). Green changing to red. Matures Oct-Nov.
Twig: Stout. It gives off a citrus scent if broken.
Bark: Brown to gray, thin, smooth when young, but plating or scaling later in life.
The Southern Magnolia is sometimes called an Evergreen Magnolia, or a Bull-bay.

I took four pictures of the tree’s flowers, each illustrating a different stage of the flower life cycle. You can learn much more about the magnolia flower life cycle, and see pictures of it, at this website.

The Flower Before Blooming

The Flower Begins to Bloom

The Flower Has Bloomed

Once the petals fall off, the center of the flower remains — the fruit or seed pod:

The Fruit; Flower Petals Have Fallen

In the last year I’ve taken to learning about trees via field-guiding. While field-guiding is certainly enjoyable in itself, I started mostly because I wanted to improve my ability to see, both during observation and with my mind’s inner eye. Routine close observation of details — samaras, leafstalks, whatever — definitely has lead to improvement in both areas. For example, a mechanic showed me some small parts of a Civic brake system a few months back. My eyes would have simply glazed over a year ago. But as a result of field-guiding, I could see just what he was talking about. As to the inner eye: I’ve always had difficulty visualizing in my mind. Many people are startled when I confess that while I can close my eyes and picture a stop sign, I can’t mentally change its color. Still can’t. But the more I scrutinize small visual details, the better my mind’s eye becomes. A specific instance of this is what I think of as “stabilizing” my mental imagery. Before field-guiding, if I closed my eyes and visualized the sycamore fruit I have sitting on my shelf, the image would sort of wobble and vanish after only a second or two. Now I can more or less keep it in my inner eye for as long as I can concentrate.

: The Best Field Guide to North American Trees

I use the National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Trees of North America (above). Highly recommended; full of color photographs.

I have to say it, I have to conclude with the cheesiest line ever: Enjoy the forest…and the trees!

Douglas Lucas » Trees

Vine Love

Biggest Southern Magnolia in DFW