Male Baltimore oriole sipping nectar from the red  tubular flowers of the buckeye by the Clinton School.
Picture by Martha Bowden

What a welcome sight the red buckeye (Aesculus pavia) is in a spring season of so many colorless, wind-pollinated trees and shrubs.

The common, cheerful plants grow nearly statewide, leafing out well before the spring starting gun is fired and bearing panicles of showy red flowers to attract the birds, hummingbirds and bumblebees.

This old red buckeye tree is worth a visit; it grows directly across the road from the parking lot of the Clinton School on East 3rd Street in Little Rock.

Old red buckeye tree across from Clinton School.
Picture by Ellen Repar

Red buckeyes typically live as understory shrubs, but ambitious or lucky plants can grow 25-30 feet high. The current state champion, from Ashdown in Little River County, measures 23 feet high with a trunk diameter of more than 8 inches.

The buckeye genus comprises about a dozen species of Northern Hemisphere trees and shrubs, almost evenly split between the New World and the Old.

Seven species occur in North America: 1 in California and 5 in the East, with 2 in Arkansas—Ohio buckeye with yellow flowers is restricted here to the Ouachita and Ozark Highlands. Add to those the exotic horse-chestnut of Eurasia, Aesculus hippocastanum, which sporadically escapes cultivation in both the East and Pacific Northwest.

As spectacular as the flowers are, the buckeye takes its name from the large and strikingly colored seeds, with dark seed coat and pale placental scar. The British call them conkers. In America, they’re carried as good luck charms. However, anecdotal evidence from back in my teaching days suggests that their powers are limited—they were used instead of studying by a lot of my students on Botany and Regional Flora test days, but to no apparent effect.

Written by Eric Sundell

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The common name is based on the appearance of the leaves being similar to those of an anemone as well as meadow rue.  The white to pink, cup-shaped flowers occur in umbels on slender stems in early spring, blooming for three weeks.

Flowers have 5-11 petal-like sepals that may be white to pink with pink flowers fading to a lighter shade with age.  Flowers are about 1 inch wide.   This non-aggressive plant does well in well drained soil of a garden setting under deciduous trees.  Plant height varies from three to six inches.

Rue anemone is common throughout the state in undisturbed hardwoods and it’s blooming now.  False rue anemone (Enemion [Isopyrum] biternatum) is an uncommon look-alike to keep an eye out for.
Article and Photos by Sid Vogelpohl

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Toothache tree
Photo by Sid Vogelpohl

If you haven’t been introduced, chew on a twig or a piece of bark for a few minutes and feel your mouth and tongue start to tickle and go numb.

(Please be sure that you have correctly identified the tree and you are not in fact chewing on a poison-ivy vine that might be climbing the trunk.)

Compound leaves of toothache tree
Photo by Sid Vogelpohl

Toothache tree (tickle tongue or prickly-ash or Hercules’ club) is covered with prickles from the compound leaves to the twigs and bark.

The conical to flattened bark projections are especially interesting, each with prominent layers of cork tipped with a sharp, delicate spine.

Toothache tree occurs in the southwestern half to two-thirds of the state on a variety of upland and poorly drained sites.

It blooms in the spring–pretty, but nothing spectacular. The species is a member of the citrus family, and like our wafer-ash (or hop tree) is a host for giant swallowtail butterfly larvae.

A second species, Z. americanum, is rare in northern Arkansas.

Sugarberry with similar bark architecture
Photo by Martha Bowden

The only other Arkansas trees with similar bark architecture are the sugarberries and hackberries, Celtis species, with amorphous, corky, wart-like protuberances.

Written by Eric Sundell

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Yellow trout- lilies at Bell Slough. Picture taken by Sharon Ferguson

Arkansas Native Plant Society (ANPS) loves to get pictures from our members to post.  Please keep sending them in!

This beautiful stand of yellow trout-lilies (Erythronium rostratum) is blooming right now at Bell Slough near Mayflower.

Yellow trout-lilies grow in moist, rich woods on stream and river terraces and shaded slopes throughout the northwestern half of Arkansas.  They often grow in large colonies and generally bloom a couple weeks later than the white trout-lilies.  This particular species of yellow trout-lily holds its flowers more upright rather than nodding like many other species of trout-lilies.  The common name “trout-lily” is likely derived from the mottling of the leaves, in reference to the spotting and mottling of some species of trout.

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Thickets at Holla Bend National Wildlife Refuge, from two to about fifteen feet in height, were so impressively massive, they seemed to monopolize acres of ground.

The species is found throughout the state, favoring sites with plenty of soil moisture.

The small, tasty plums ripen early, in May.

Written by Eric Sundell
Pictures by Martha Bowden

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Snow-on-the-prairie  Photo by Joe Nix

Join Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission botanist Theo Witsell on a return field trip to explore and inventory two of the state’s highest quality blackland prairie remnants. We will meet at Terre Noire Natural Area near Arkadelphia at 9:30 am. We’ll break for lunch at Arkadelphia, and then head southwest to The Nature Conservancy’s Columbus Prairie Preserve for the afternoon. This will be a spring version of the trip last October. Both of these sites have been painstakingly restored over many years and are home to many rare plant species. Come for one, the other, or both sites. Limit 20 people. Please call Theo at 501.831.7473 or email theo@arkansasheritage.org to reserve a spot and get directions.

Field trips of the Arkansas Native Plant Society are for current and future members. (That’s right: Everyone is welcome!) Botanists from around the state lead these enjoyable and informative walks. If you are planning to attend, please inform the trip leaders in advance so they will know to expect you.  Uncertain of the weather?  Be sure to call the trip leader to confirm.

Become a member of Arkansas Native Plant Society.  Learn how to join here.

Uncertain of the weather?  Be sure to call the trip leader to confirm.

Thursday, May 16, 10 a.m. Ouachita Huckleberries. Leader: Susan Hooks (501-282-5365)

Meet at 10 a.m. at Burl’s Smokehouse on U.S. Hwy 270 in Crystal Springs, west of Hot Springs. U.S. Forest Service botanist Susan Hooks will lead us to one of the few known populations of black huckleberry, Gaylussacia baccata, the only true huckleberry in Arkansas. (All the other “huckleberries” are just ordinary blueberries.) We’ll also see Ozark chinquapin and cucumber magnolia (with luck, we’ll catch the cucumber tree in bloom), and a host of spring wildflowers. The trip will be more driving than walking; we’ll carpool at Burl’s and be back there for lunch around 1 p.m. Or bring a sack lunch.

Invitation to new members – Join Arkansas Native Plant Society

Nothing to do this spring?   Check out the calendar and join us for a hike.

Uncertain of the weather?  Be sure to call the trip leader to confirm.

Wednesday, May 22, 10 a.m. Petit Jean Mountain State Park. Leader: Betty Owen (501-472-6920)

Meet at 10 at Mather Lodge, Petit Jean State Park, for a 2-3 hour walk on the Canyon Trail (easy to moderate). The walk will follow Cedar Creek’s many small falls and deep pools.  We’ll see spring wildflowers at their peak and Petit Jean’s gorgeous scenery. Lunch back at the lodge around 1 p.m. or bring trail food. Or both.

Invitation to new members – Join Arkansas Native Plant Society

Many more field trips are offered by Arkansas Native Plant Society this spring.  The calendar  has a listing of them.  Please join us.

Uncertain of the weather? Call the trip leaders to confirm.

Saturday, May 11, 10 a.m. Dripping Springs in Hot Springs. Leaders: John Simpson (501-276-3204) & Eric Sundell (870-723-1089).

Join two of the Ouachita Mountain Boys for an easy 2 hour walk (round trip) to one of Arkansas’ loveliest mossy rocks, with an abundance of wildflowers along the way. Featherfoil or water-violet, Hottonia inflata, is an uncommon floating aquatic that occurs in the area.

From the landmark Arlington Hotel on Central Avenue travel north for several blocks to turn left (west) around the fountain onto Whittington Ave and then immediately turn right (north) onto Cedar Glades. Travel 1.6 miles to turn right (north) onto Wildcat Road (at sign for Cedar Glades Park). Then travel 2.5 miles crossing one-lane bridge to trail-head at barrier gate. 10 a.m. John’s cell: 501-276-3204, if you lose the way.

Invitation to new members – Join Arkansas Native Plant Society
More field trips on our calendar.  Please join us.

Picture by Ellen Repar

Like most genera with a large number of species, the oaks (Quercus spp.) are often tricky to identify, in part because they are promiscuous, hybridizing with any number of closely related species. (For example, in the Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas, black oak and southern red oak are each recorded as hybridizing with no less than eight other oak species.)

Compton oak is the result of a union between overcup oak and live oak, the spawn of Q. lyrata x virginiana. The bicolored leaves suggest overcup oak, while the semi-evergeen habit reflects the live oak parentage. It is a naturally occurring hybrid, recorded on the USDA Plants database from seven southeastern states of the Gulf and Atlantic Coastal Plains, from Texas to Virginia, where both parents occur naturally. Dale Thomas, in his atlas of the vascular plants of Louisiana, records Compton oak as a spontaneous element of the flora from eleven parishes. However, in Arkansas, only one of the two parents, overcup oak, is native. Live oak will grow respectably in central and southern Arkansas as a horticultural specimen and apparently, on rare occasion, will jump the fence—it is listed in the Checklist of the Vascular Plants of Arkansas. So how did such a fine Compton oak get itself to Country Club Lane in Little Rock? A horticultural provenance. Compton oak was introduced into cultivation in 1920, and our tree was no doubt planted at this Little Rock site decades ago.

To see the tree, follow country Club Boulevard east till it dead ends at the gate of the Little Rock Country Club. There, turn left onto Country Club Lane. The Compton oak is on the left, about 2-3 houses down the block, a grand, interesting, and evergreen tree. Thanks to Bill Shepherd for alerting us to it.

Written by Eric Sundell

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