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Plant Talk

Inside The New York Botanical Garden

Around the Garden

Native Black Locust Trees Make an Entrance

Posted in Around the Garden, Gardens and Collections, What's Beautiful Now on July 11 2013, by Joyce Newman

Joyce H. Newman holds a Certificate in Horticulture from The New York Botanical Garden and has been a Tour Guide for over seven years. She is the former editor of Consumer Reports GreenerChoices.org.

NPG-BoardwalkThe Native Plant Garden‘s entrance decking, promenade, and benches are all made with lumber from native, sustainably harvested black locust trees (Robinia pseudoacacia)—a wonderfully durable, rot-resistant hardwood species with a long and colorful history.

Native Americans in Virginia made bows from black locust and are believed to have planted the trees moving eastward from the Southern Appalachians. Colonists at Jamestown reportedly used the trees to build corner posts for their first homes. The wood was also used by pioneers for fence posts, ship masts, and for pegs—called trunnels—in ship building.

Black locust tree (Robinia pseudoacacia)
Black locust tree
(Robinia pseudoacacia)

When wet, the wood expands and becomes leak proof. So the ship trunnels were so strong that they lasted even longer than the ship hulls. According to naturalist Donald Peattie, after the War of 1812, the British claimed that they were defeated on Lake Champlain because of the superiority of the Americans’ “locust fleet” built with the trunnels.

Black locust trees grow rapidly by sending out underground stems that send up new shoots to form new trees. For this reason some considered them to be invasive or at best a nuisance. Because the tree spreads naturally, it is usually found in groves and these can be managed sustainably. For outdoor projects in the New York metro area, some progressive landscape architects seem to be using it more frequently as an alternative to tropical hardwoods.

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Of Monarchs and Milkweed

Posted in Around the Garden, What's Beautiful Now, Wildlife on July 8 2013, by Joyce Newman

Joyce H. Newman holds a Certificate in Horticulture from The New York Botanical Garden and has been a Tour Guide for over seven years. She is the former editor of Consumer Reports GreenerChoices.org.

Monarch_Butterfly_Danaus_plexippus_Milkweed-1024x544

Monarch butterflies are among the most popular and prominent insects in the Native Plant Garden, easy to spot with their dramatically dark orange and black patterned wings. One reason for their high visibility and large numbers is actually their relationship with the tall milkweed plants, which are flowering now in the dry meadow. Without the milkweeds, we wouldn’t have the monarchs.

In fact, monarchs (Danaus plexippus) depend on milkweed throughout their entire life cycle—when they lay eggs and when their  larvae, in caterpillar form, feed exclusively on milkweed.

Many different species of native milkweed provide nourishment for monarchs, including swamp milkweed, green, purple, redwing, whorled, and horney spider varieties. The dry meadow contains a total of more than 500 milkweed plants. Of these, by far the most numerous are the butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa).

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