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Native plant of the month: Red Cedar We love it and we hate it in the Ozarks By Dr. Lynda Richards Well, I’m really looking forward to spring now.
Next month, I promise, we’ll be back to flowering plants with
real flowers. This month,
why not consider a common native plant which we both love and hate?
I’m thinking of cedar, properly eastern redcedar, or Juniperus
virginiana. Ask old-timers, and they will complain that “Cedar is
taking this country.” Their
opinion is borne out by the original 1800’s land survey records stored
at the Department of Natural Resources building on Fairgrounds Road in
Rolla. Early surveyors found very little cedar—only on bluffs
where fires could not reach it. Nowadays it is everywhere, especially in old fields and
disturbed soils. Missouri
Department of Conservation and U.S. Forest Service biologists are trying
to get rid of the cedars that have invaded old fields, to restore the
cedar-free savanna and prairie-like habitats that once characterized the
flatter uplands of the Ozarks. But people like cedars too—as Christmas trees, as
windbreaks, for landscaping, and to attract birds like cedar waxwings
and bluebirds. Our George O. White state nursery at Licking supplies
cedar seedlings, and commercial nurseries stock several cultivars. Cedar wood is prized for its beautiful red and yellow
colors, its fragrance, and its durability.
Cedar resists rot, even when in contact with soil, so it is
commonly used for fence posts.
Other uses include linings for closets, cedar chests of all
sizes, lawn furniture, and (chipped or shredded) as bedding for pets and
livestock. Cedar oil is
extracted for use in perfumery. If you cut off a fence-row hardwood sapling you can
expect a new tree to sprout up from the root. But,
a cedar tree cut off below the lowest live limb will not re-sprout. One of the strange things about cedars is that each tree
is either male or female. The
female cedars are the ones that make the blue berries, which are
actually modified cones. The
males have tiny cones that release clouds of pollen in early spring.
Wind-borne pollen is fine and light enough to be inhaled, and is
a major cause of early spring “hay fever”—itchy, runny nose and
eyes, sneezing, and sore throat. A pollen grain that lands on a female cone (instead of up
your nose) can fertilize the ovules, starting seed development.
The seed cones are fleshy and blue like a berry.
Each cone or fruit contains between one and four brown seeds.
Birds eat a lot of these, then sit on fences to digest their
meal. Cedar-apple rust, as its name implies, is a fungus that
infests both cedar and apple trees.
On cedars, it causes rounded galls that look like discarded
chewing gum and, in spring, send forth eye-catching fleshy orange arms
like sea urchins. These
fungi produce millions of spores that are carried by wind to apple
leaves where they cause ugly yellow spots and defoliation. Dr. Lynda Richards, of Rolla, retired Mark Twain
National Forest ecologist, leads Wildflower Walks for the Ozark Rivers
chapter of the National Audubon Society and is a Phelps County Master
Gardener. |
