Plant/Tree of the Month
January 2004

The bright red berries on the many Winterberry Hollies or Ilex verticillata on campus persist through much of the winter providing a bright spot in the landscape and a beautiful contrast to the white blanket of snow so common here.

Many of the crabapples on campus hold their fruit late into the winter providing winter visual interest for us humans and a rich (sometimes fermented) food source for the first robins migrating North again. Many early migrating birds take advantage of the food source and consequently we benefit by the interest of the fruit and by the birds that the fruit attracts

The photos above of a Paperbark Maple or Acer ginnala show the interesting cinnamon colored bark that exfoliates (peels away in layers) as the plant ages. This characteristic is present all year but becomes much more visible after the leaves have fallen in autumn.

Above Left: the Contorted Filbert or Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’ and the Above Right: European Weeping Beech or Fagus sylvatica ‘Pendula’ are both plants that reveal their most desirable characteristics in the winter months after the leaves have fallen. They both have very interesting branching habits but differ widely in size. The Filbert is a grafted plant that can be incorporated in a foundation planting taking up only a 6’ by 6’ by 6’ area while the Beech may grow to be 75’ wide and nearly as tall.

The photos of the White Birch (genus Betula) above, show the bright white bark that is most visible in winter when there are no leaves on the tree to hide it from view.