American hornbeam (TVA, White's Creek Small Wild Area, Plants)

American hornbeam

Carpinus caroliniana

Summary ⁶

Carpinus caroliniana (American hornbeam) is a small hardwood tree in the genus Carpinus. American hornbeam is also known as blue-beech, ironwood, and musclewood. It is native to eastern North America, from Minnesota and southern Ontario east to Maine, and south to eastern Texas and northern Florida. It also grows in Canada (southwest Quebec and southeast Ontario), Mexico (central and southern), Guatemala, and western Honduras.

Adaptation ⁷

American hornbeam occurs primarily as an understory species in bottomland mixed-hardwood forests. Best sites are in the transition between mesic and wet areas -- near lakes and swamps, on well-drained terraces of rivers, terraces or steep slopes of minor streams with some gradient, coves, ravine bottoms, and rises in lowlands. These sites generally have abundant soil moisture but sufficient drainage to prevent saturation and poor aeration during the growing season, although trees may be abundant on sites flooded for up to about 20% of the growing season. American hornbeam occurs less commonly in upland hardwood forests and may range from 300-900 meters elevation in the Appalachian and Adirondack Mountains. In the northeastern US, it may be an early migrant and form pure stands in moist old fields; it may be a minor seral component of sapling-size tree-shrub communities along the mid-Atlantic coast. Flowering: March-May; fruiting: August-October.

Comments ⁸

Carpinus caroliniana consists of two rather well-marked geographical races, treated here as subspecies. These hybridize or intergrade in a band extending from Long Island along the Atlantic coast through coastal Virginia and North Carolina, and then westward in northern South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Plants with intermediate features are also found throughout the highlands of Missouri and Arkansas. J. J. Furlow (1987b) has described the variation of this complex in detail.

Native Americans used Carpinus caroliniana medicinally to treat flux, navel yellowness, cloudy urine, Italian itch, consumption, diarrhea, and constipation, as an astringent, a tonic, and a wash, and to facilitate childbirth (D. E. Moerman 1986; no subspecies specified).

Damaging agents ⁹

Insect and disease damage is not a serious problem with American hornbeam. The species is resistant to frost damage; its succulent foliage can withstand temperatures as low as -8.5° C (17° F) (1). The tree is very windfirm. Recreational use in forested campgrounds disposes it to increased disease infection, insect infestation and decline; it is the tree least capable of withstanding such use of the 22 hardwood species evaluated (47).

American hornbeam is susceptible to fire. Wildfires severe enough to kill the hardwood component of white oak stands in Rhode Island eliminated American hornbeam (10). Normally, the species made up 6 percent of the understory stems. However, neither a crown fire nor a ground fire affected the status of American hornbeam in the ninth year after burning a loblolly pine stand in North Carolina (42).

Sources and Credits

(c) Erutuon, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://www.flickr.com/photos/8518482@N07/521973153
(c) Melissa McMasters, some rights reserved (CC BY), https://www.flickr.com/photos/132545975@N04/19098492301/
(c) Tom Potterfield, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/tgpotterfield/6953505855/
(c) Tom Potterfield, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/tgpotterfield/7184103288/
(c) Dendroica cerulea, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/dendroica/13653034525/
Adapted by Jonathan (JC) Carpenter from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpinus_caroliniana
Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/1380417
(c) Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, MO, 63110 USA, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/19823096
(c) Unknown, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/22778157

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