Chinese Tallow Tree (Triadica sebifera)

In this post we'll discuss the Chinese tallow tree (Triadica sebifera), a "spurge" in the family Euphorbiaceae. Spurge is a funny-sounding word, but is merely an archaic English word related to "purge" or "expurgate," referring to the latex that many spurges, including the Rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), contain. Do not mistake the Chinese tallow tree for the Chinaberry tree (Melia azedarach), a member of the mahogany/neem family. If you did so, you would easily be forgiven since they have many similar characteristics:

• Both trees are native to East Asia, although the Chinaberry tree has a much wider distribution from India to China to the Indonesian archipelago.
• Both trees were brought to the American Southeast around two hundred years ago, where they quickly went feral.
• Both trees have some ornamental applications and some productive uses, but these positives are outweighed by the toxicity and sheer weediness of the plants.

The arboretum does not contain Chinaberry trees, as far as we know. We do have volunteer Chinese tallow saplings. They germinated in one of our wild areas and had the opportunity to grow unhindered for more than two years. This past week, the tallest and most conspicuous individuals were removed.

There is a small, overgrown area of the arboretum at the southwest corner of Mickle Hall. It was mowed only once within the past three years.

This area slopes down toward the arboretum drainage channel. The groundcover was badly damaged and the topsoil was washed away during the Mickle Hall rennovations that occured in 2011. The groundcover never recovered and consequently the area was progressively eroded, so we decided to stop cutting this area in the hopes that something would take root and keep the soil in place.

Chinese tallow tree (Triadica sebifera) was one of many voluteers that unexpectedly took root in this difficult space. In this photo, the Chinese tallow tree has grown up above the surrounding grasses and is leaning toward the sidewalk, stretching for more sunlight.

Chinese tallow tree has a very distinctive leaf shape. It looks like a Christmas decoration!

The tip of the leaf comes to a point.

This is a small bundle of young Chinese tallow trees. They were all removed from the same area. Since there aren't any mature Chinese tallow trees in the arboretum, it would be interesting to know where the nearest mature specimen is located.

This is the slender trunk of one sapling. The leaf petioles alternate up the trunk.

Chinese tallow leaves are very pretty. A fly photobombed the picture, giving us a great size-comparison photo.

External links:

USDA page on Chinese Tallow Tree

LSU AG Center page on Chinese Tallow Tree 

LSU AG Center page on Chinaberry Tree

N.C. Cooperative Extension page on Chinese Tallow Tree

Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans)

Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) is robust, shade-tolerant, and manifests in multiple distinct growth-patterns. It's found almost everywhere in the Eastern woodlands and offers food for birds with its berries, although it can also spread asexually. These traits make it an important and resilient plant species, adding to its reputation as a fearsome nuisance.

The most salient aspect of poison ivy is the resin found in its leaves: urushiol. This term derives from the Japanese name for a related species, Toxicodendron vernicifluum, the Chinese lacquer tree. Not confined to poison ivy, urushiol resin can be found in many members of the family Anacardiaceae, which also contains the sumacs (genus Rhus) and the cashews (genus Anacardium). Despite its traditional use in East Asian arts and crafts as the primary ingredient for lacquerware decoration in woodworking, urushiol is a potentially dangerous poison. Contact with the resin leads to an immune-response whereby the skin is attacked by the afflicted's own T-cells. Rash, blisters, scarring, and even necrosis in severe cases results, and a prolonged healing period is generally required before the affected skin returns to normal.

Thankfully, not everyone experiences an allergic reaction after exposure. Even within nuclear families, one member will be allergic and another may be immune or only slightly allergic. For those who do "take poison ivy rash," knowing how to identify this plant is extremely important if you like to be outside. This plant isn't just found in the woods; it grows readily in town, and it frequently germinates in the arboretum as a volunteer; thanks, birds. Although it isn't welcome in the landscape, we never get rid of all of it.

 

This is one of the arboretum's less-cultivated areas. It's a small wedge-shaped zone located near the southwest corner of Mickle Hall. Due to a serious problem of erosion in this section, we have allowed some extra undergrowth to accumulate that would not be tolerated elsewhere. Over the last approximately three years it has only been mowed once.

A couple of poison ivy plants were spotted this week. Two vines were growing straight up, and they had grown taller than the surrounding plants, making themselves conspicuous. The Japanese proverb Derukui Wautareru (The nail that stands up gets hammered down) is appropriate here, given the urushiol. Let the rest of the arboretum's denizens be thus warned.

This is the tallest vine that was snipped. Several additional pieces were carefully cut, photographed and then discarded.

 

This is a detail image of the vine. Here we see light green leaf stems alternating along a light-brown vine.

 

Poison ivy has compound leaves. In this photo, we see one leaf. Each leaf has three leaflets. Some people find the saying "Leaves of three, let it be" helpful; other people find such expressions confusing.

 

This is another leaf. There are three leaflets, and one leaflet shows signs of predation. Who out there is bold enough to chow down on poison ivy?

 

USDA page on Poison Ivy

LSUAgCenter page on Poison Ivy ID 

Urushiol and lacquerware 

Toad's World

What secrets do these sprinkler boxes hold?

Amphibians! To the novice, these may appear to be "frogs" or even "toad-frogs." In fact, they are true toads of the family Bufonidae. This is either eastern toad (Anaxyrus americanus), southern toad (Anaxyrus terrestris), or Fowler's toad (Anaxyrus fowleri), three closely related species occuring in our region. We'll call this a medium-sized specimen.

Now for the itty bitty, insy winsy variety: this little fellow looks like he was born yesterday. But give him some credit; he is probably the sole survivor of a clutch of thousands of eggs. Given these odds, we should award these little fellers some credit. Like the medium-sized specimen above, we can't tell if this is an American, Southern, or Fowler's toad.

Seen in profile, this small toad has good posture.

A comparison is a nice way to round out this post. Clearly we have enough bugs and creepy crawlies to go around.

These toads come in red, black, brown, tan, "Mossy Oak," and all the shades in-between. Examination of the links below has led us to believe that this is a Fowler's toad (Anaxyrus fowleri). Identification mostly depends on the presence and form of ridges between the eye socket and neck glands, as well as the relative size of leg warts. In this case, the specimen lacks a prominent post-orbital ridge and has more-or-less uniformly sized warts. Let's also take a moment to mention that toads are not only gorgeous creatures, they are seasonally appropriate.

Do you remember the line "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble" from Macbeth? You may have forgotten that in the long list of ingredients, TOADS were the first reagent to be added:

Round about the cauldron go;

In the poisoned entrails throw.

Toad, that under cold stone 

Days and nights has thirty-one 

Sweltered venom sleeping got, 

Boil thou first i’ th’ charmèd pot.

Fillet of a fenny snake

In the cauldron boil and bake.

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder’s fork and blindworm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witch’s mummy, maw and gulf

Of the ravined salt-sea shark,

Root of hemlock digged i’ th’ dark,

Liver of blaspheming Jew,

Gall of goat and slips of yew

Slivered in the moon’s eclipse,

Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips, 

Finger of birth-strangled babe

Ditch-delivered by a drab,

Make the gruel thick and slab.

Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron

For th’ ingredience of our cauldron.

External links from Gonefroggin':
Fowler's Toad
Southern Toad

Photos of Fowler's toad from UC Berkley

Photos of Southern toad from UC Berkley

A helpful youtube video on toad identification 

Volunteers in the Arboretum

As we continue to clean up the volunteer recruitment area and make it more accessible, we also document the species that have taken root in this green space. Since the volunteers are by necessity an unmanaged population, this is an interesting sample of what survives the struggle for existence.

This week we are clearing a path around a looming specimen: our only large, on-site native southern red oak (Quercus falcata). It is the large trunk pictured center. Most of its upper branches are out of the frame.

 

 

Seen from another vantage, the same mature southern red oak (Quercus falcata), and the red bricks of the Student Union Building are seen in the background.

Over the past few years, we haven't had a path around the base of this trunk.

Until today, the tree sign was hidden by the undergrowth. The area is thick with vegetation. Numerous volunteers are present with several different species represented.

Now, things have changed. First, the area was carefully surveyed for possible recruitments to the arboretum catalogue. This process involved weeding by hand―pulling up dewberry and snipping little trees. A few individuals, currrently very short in stature, were identified as candidates (we will let them grow up a little more before making it official). Then, this area was cut with a lawnmower to make a clear path.

Now, you can clearly see the sign.

Most of the volunteers around the southern red oak were removed or cut back to the ground. Only a few were left unharmed, and they are not visible in this photo. 

The photos below showcase the most conspicuous volunteers that were removed. These individuals were quick to colonize a new territory and were winning in the competition for survival. Unfortunately, they didn't germinate in a space deemed suitable by the arboretum curator.

chittamwood (Bumelia lanuginosa) REMOVED.... Although another chittamwood nearby will most likely be added to the arboretum's collection; it is located further away from the red oak's trunk.

oak (Quercus sp.) REMOVED

trident-leaf maple (Acer buergerianum) REMOVED

goldenrod (Solidago sp.) REMOVED

trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans) REMOVED

elm (Ulmus sp.) REMOVED

redbud (Cercis canadensis) REMOVED

nandina (Nandina domestica) REMOVED

non-native holly (Ilex sp.) REMOVED

red mulberry (Morus rubra) REMOVED

Mexican plum (Prunus mexicana) REMOVED

non-native privet REMOVED

Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) REMOVED

dewberry (Rubus trivalis) REMOVED This species was heavily represented around the base of the red oak trunk; the ground was thick with dewberry. This species is very successful in the ground of the arboretum.

Black and Yellow Garden Spider (Argiope aurantia)

Boo! Autumn is a season for creepy-crawlies, spiders, and bugs. This is a female Argiope aurantia, which is Latin for 'golden silver-face.' This name makes a lot of sense, given that the cephalothorax (meaning head-body) is silver while the abdomen is gold and black. We know it's not a male because males of the species are much smaller, brown, and just plain ugly.

"Oh... what tangled webs we weave...." As members of the Araneidae family, these spides are "orb-weavers" and produce the classic spider-web.

This specimen was photographed on September 28, 2024, next to the long white wooden bridge in the arboretum.

 

For comparison, this photo is from insectidentification.org (image credit: Arch Baker).

Volunteers in the Arboretum

The overgrown area near the Student Union Building, previously referred to as 'the volunteer recruitment zone' or 'the Arboretum's unintended creche', is slowly being cultivated: we have removed Groundsel shrubs (Baccharis halimifolia) and Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense). This week, we cleared around the sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), making it possible to read the sign and walk around the trunk.

The arboretum has only one sycamore on display, so we want to raise this tree's profile. Visitors ought to be able to read the sign and examine the trunk without too much difficulty. Right now, it looks a bit too hazardous; you might come away with some dewberry-scratches on your shins. 

There are numerous vines, little shrubs, and trees growing around the base of the trunk. Unfortunately they must be removed for the health and visibility of the sycamore.

The base of the trunk is now revealed. Several small trees were removed; elms (Ulmus sp.), oaks (Quercus sp.), and one black cherry (Prunus serotina) were snipped. We do not want any other trees to grow up next to the sycamore trunk, so it was an easy decision to remove these volunteers.

We used a lawn mower to cut the grass, making this space more inviting to foot traffic.

Several pieces of crossvine (Bignonia capreolata) had to be pulled from the trunk.

Dewberry (Rubus trivialis) was cleared away from the base of the trunk. This species comprised the bulk of the plant material surrounding the tree.

Dewberry vines have painful spines. It's best to wear long pants when walking near a dewberry patch, but as the spines get caught on clothes, you still need to watch your step even if dressed defensively.

A small yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria) was growing near the trunk, but not next to it. Yaupons do very well in the soil of the arboretum and they are common volunteers. This little shrub was allowed to stay for now and might very well be added to the catalogue.

Luckily, there were not any passionflower vines surrounding the sycamore. The abundance of Gulf fritillary butterflies tells us that we ought to refrain from pulling any passionflower―we want the caterpillars to have plenty to eat!