Trees, Shrubs, Moss and Lichen- UW campus, 5/22

Trees/Shrubs:
Class time today was spent touring the University of Washington campus to look at the different kinds of trees and shrubs growing. Many of the tree have a metal tag attached to the trunk or low branches that have an ID number printed on them. By going to the website and entering the number you are given its height, age and other information about that specific tree.

The first tree we visited was the Ginkgo Biloba. The leaves are very unique and fan out with tiny ridges on the surface. The veins on the leaf fork out in a pattern and cover the surface. The Ginkgo tree is extremely resistant to bacteria allowing it to be used medicinally and is the oldest unchanged tree in the world. There are male and female trees but there will almost never be a female planted in urban areas because their seeds give off the smell of vomit.

Next there is a row of English Elm trees (also called the Tall Elm) that range anywhere from 50 to 100 feet tall. They are deciduous trees that originated in Italy and have very water resistant wood making their wood used for coffin building. In England they are associated with bad memories because of their use in funerals. The seeds of this tree are white wafer looking things that are all over campus in the spring time. These seeds are sterile and the Elm uses suckers to reproduce.

Another common tree on campus, and the northwest, is the Red Cedar. The tree has been used for generations by the Native Americans because of its many uses. The bark was used for wood, canoes, and building materials while the inner materials were woven for mats and baskets. Also the oil crushed from the leaves is commonly used in products like deodorant and perfume.

One interesting tree we learned about was the Pacific Madrone. What I thought was the most interesting quality was the bark is always cool to touch giving it the nickname 'refrigerator tree'. The leaves can be crushed and added to tea to help cramps and stomachaches. The dense wood gives it a higher chance of surviving forest fires.

Mosses/Lichens:
Lichens are campus are very rare to find because they are sensitive to the air quality of an environment and can only grow when the quality is high. Because the UW is in the middle of Seattle it is not a great habitat for lichen to grow. However, there are a few trees with patches of lichen on them and are almost always accompanied by moss. The lichen that we did find are very simple, making them slightly more tolerant to the air. The more complex a lichen is, the less tolerant it is of its environment.

The moss was easier to find and identify because Seattle is also a wet environment. On this day it was cold and drizzling so there was more to see. Lyell's Bristle Moss resembles a star and is slightly translucent. It can grow all over the US, Europe, the Mediterranean and Western Asia. One really cool thing about moss and lichen co-existing together is they can live dormant for up to 2 years. Because there is not always moisture in the air for them they can sort of hibernate and will appear again as soon as it begins to rain again. There are 8 different classes of moss that all evolved from green algae.

Species List:
Ginkgo Biloba
English Elm
Red Cedar
Giant Sequioa
Horse Chestnut
Pacific Madrone
Golden Chain tree
Douglass Fir
Cindaleeran Cancer
Skolios Sporum Verda
Permia shield lichen
Eurhynanium praelongum
Hypnum circinatum
Ceratodon Purpurius
Lyell's Bristle Moss
Red-Roof moss

Posted on June 2, 2012 05:23 AM by karavanslyck