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OSU's Secrest Arboretum field trip gives Hazel Harvey pupils a lesson in geography and language arts, too
By Jim Chatfield
Special to the Beacon Journal
Published on Saturday, Oct 25, 2008
One of the great pleasures of being a horticulturist and being involved with Ohio State University's ''Why Trees Matter'' program is enjoying the beauty of trees with young people. My wife Laura's second- and third-grade class at Hazel Harvey Elementary in Doylestown recently took a field trip to OSU's Secrest Arboretum at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster.
It was a trees-across-the-curriculum day in the Arboretum. We did math and science in identifying and measuring trees as part of a scientific project to determine the environmental services trees provide.
We did geography when using maps in the Secrest Dawn Redwood Grove explaining how dawn redwoods that originated in Siberia and China spread all over the world, including Ohio, from their start in the Far East more than 100 million years ago. Then they mysteriously contracted to small populations in the mountains of China until discovered by foresters there in the 1940s. Now, due to plant exploration expeditions, they have respread throughout the world, including Ohio.
We even did language arts as the students recited poems about insects and plants in the wonderful new Secrest Arboretum John Streeter Amphitheatre.
We saw wonderful trees, including golden larch, umbrella magnolia, and seven-son flower. Among them all, one of the children's and my favorites is another Chinese native, the katsura tree, Cercidiphyllum japonicum. Katsura trees frame the stage area of the Secrest Amphitheatre and, as curator Ken Cochran notes, these were planted by Edmund Secrest in the 1920s. Edmund Secrest was Ohio's first state forester and the founder of the Arboretum 100 years ago in 1908. Here are a few notes about katsura trees, and even a poem of my own about this wonderful tree.
Katsura trees
This Asian native is one of the largest deciduous trees in its native habitat of China and Japan, growing there to more than 100 feet in height. Some trees are pyramidal, some spreading at maturity, with brownish bark becoming shaggy as the tree ages. Leaves are an elegant feature of everchanging hues, with emerging leaves in spring a rosy red-purple, summer leaves a blue-green and apricot to lemon fall foliage. Ovate to heart-shaped leaves are arranged oppositely or sub-oppositely on the twigs, which provide a delicate pattern to the branch array when viewed from below. Leaves are hygrophobic, with moisture pooling in jewel-like droplets.
Flowers are dioecious with male and female blossoms on separate trees, with reddish or greenish flowers inconspicuous in spring unless the light catches the bare branches just right. Fruits are small pods lined up in leaf axils along twigs. Katsura trees do well in shade, but will thrive in sun as long as watered to prevent drought stress in establishment years. A popular specimen cultivar is 'Pendula' with cascading branches. Check out a magnificent example at Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum in Cincinnati.
As for the species, there are wonderful specimens throughout the U.S., with a rare self-seeding grove at Secrest. The genus name reflects the heart-shaped leaves similar to those of Cercis (redbuds). As to relatives, Cercidiphyllum is a monotypic family — there is only one genus in the Cercidiphyllaceae. Katsura trees have many virtues, both obvious and subtle. In autumn, as the leaves fall, as you walk beneath the tree, what is that aroma — cinnamon, cotton candy, creme brulee, brown sugar? Imagine.
Love Brulee, an Ode to Katsura
Winter wakes springtime flows garnet flowers sunshine glows
Rosy spring blush summertime blues fading apricot autumnal huesUpward upward katsura grows tall with pride half as wide
Fall foliage ferment burnt sugar spices moisture glistens droplike dews
Opposites attract hearts seek partners sometime weeping yet promise keeping
Nurture makes katsura stronger young love tender hearts beat longer.
The final and most eloquent words about the Why Trees Matter Day for the Hazel Harvey students, though, comes from one of the student's letters written to arboretum curator Cochran: ''Why Trees Matter makes my brain explode!''
Jim Chatfield is a horticultural educator with Ohio State University Extension. If you have questions about caring for your garden, write: Plant Lovers' Almanac, Akron Beacon Journal, P.O. Box 640, Akron, OH 44309-0640. Include your phone number.
One of the great pleasures of being a horticulturist and being involved with Ohio State University's ''Why Trees Matter'' program is enjoying the beauty of trees with young people. My wife Laura's second- and third-grade class at Hazel Harvey Elementary in Doylestown recently took a field trip to OSU's Secrest Arboretum at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster.
Get the full article here.
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