cktimes.ca Archives for Ecowrappin'
Ecowrappin'
New Tree for Canada
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
Since the acquisition of Bickford Oak Woods (by the Nature Conservancy of Canada, Ontario Parks, and other donors last summer), there have been some species monitoring and inventory activities completed by the Ministry of Natural Resources. Last fall, John Ambrose and Gerry Waldren conducted a plant inventory and made an exciting discovery. They located a stand of trees that they identified as Swamp Cottonwood (Populus hetrophylla) in the interior of B.O.W. This tree species has never been recorded in Ontario or in Canada before this find.Swamp Cottonwood (also known as Black Cottonwood and Swamp Poplar) is typically found on wet sites along the edges of swamps and sloughs and in flooded plains along rivers. This tree species is indigenous to eastern North America with scattered populations along the east coast from South Carolina to Connecticut and the Mississippi valley from Illinois to Louisiana. There are also a few sites in Ohio and Michigan that biologists know of so there has always been some speculation that the tree may be in Southwestern Ontario as well.
Swamp Cottonwood is a tree with a narrow, rounded crown that typically grows 60'-80' tall and 2' in diameter. The U.S. National Champion grows along the Black River in Spencer, Ohio and is 140' tall with a straight trunk nearly 9' in diameter. That's a big tree by anyone's standards. The heart-shaped leaves are 4' - 7' long by 3' - 6' wide with fine curved teeth. They are densely covered with white hairs when unfolding and become hairless on top as they mature. The leafstalks are slender, rounded and hairless. The leaves of the Swamp Cottonwood are easily distinguished from the Common Eastern Cottonwood. The bark is also very distinctive being furrowed into scaly ridges at a very young age. Even 2' - 3' thick stems are ridged.
Like some other poplar species, the Swamp Cottonwood suckers from the root system and forms colonies of stems and trunks. These trunks look like individual trees but they are actually clones of each other sharing the same root system. In fact, the stand of about 100 trees in B.O.W. is probably from one root system, all clones of each other and since Swamp Cottonwood are dioecious, they will all be either males or females.
According to my Audubon Society information, the Swamp Cottonwood is sometimes planted as a shade tree because of its beautiful emerging foliage and rapid growth. However, I would think that its suckering habit would make it a poor choice for the residential landscape.
Maybe now that people are aware of its presence in Southwestern Ontario, more Swamp Cottonwoods will be located in the near future. If you think you may have it in your wooded swamp, call either the MNR, SCRCA or the Sydenham Field Naturalists for verification.
Yours in Nature,
Larry Cornelis
