Conservation / Tree Health

By Patrick Greenfield

There was perhaps no one better than Cornelius H. Muller—one of twentieth-century America’s most notable oak fanatics—to document the continent’s most mysterious oak trees. In July 1932, the horseback-riding botanist first encountered Quercus tardifolia while collecting samples in the steep-cut canyons of Texas’s Big Bend National Park. Muller jotted down details of the twigs (slender, somewhat fluted), buds (hairy at the tip), leaves (dull blue-green), and branches (short, stiff). He anointed it with a Latin name that referenced the tree’s late-season leaf development.

Schwenda, Germany—Last summer, Friederike and Jörg von Beyme stood on a bramble-covered, Sun-blasted slope outside this small town in eastern Germany. Just 4 years ago, the hillside, part of a nearly 500-hectare forest the couple bought in 2002, was green and shady, covered in tall, neatly arranged Norway spruce trees the couple planned to cut and sell.

By: Grant Seagull

A tree disease first spotted 9 years ago in Ohio is now a leading threat to one of eastern North America’s most important trees. The poorly understood malady, called beech leaf disease, is spreading rapidly and killing both mature American beeches and saplings, new research shows.

“This study documents how rapidly [the disease] has spread since its first observation in 2012,” says Robert Marra, a forest pathologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station who was not involved with the work.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Richard Barclay opens a metal drawer in archives of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum containing fossils that are nearly 100 million years old. Despite their age, these rocks aren’t fragile. The geologist and botanist handles them with casual ease, placing one in his palm for closer examination.

The Morton Arboretum and United States Botanic Garden (USBG) announce a new partnership to advance the conservation of threatened trees in the United States, with a special focus on native oak species. The partners will develop threat assessments, conduct field work to resolve taxonomic questions and collect seeds for planting in conservation collections, and advance the work of the Global Conservation Consortium for Oak (GCCO).

by Bob Yirka , Phys.org, © Arboretum Wespelaar

By Hudson Heidger, Alex Wolf and Dylan Schwartz

Ryan Russell, the horticulturist for Columbia’s Parks and Recreation Department, is on a mission to bring the endangered quercus acerifolia — maple-leaf oaks — to Columbia.