Trees of Finnup Park--Second Essay

Before leaving silk and the paper mulberry tree, I thought it might be good to learn a few words from the silk-producing world and, as a result, understand more of the silk-production process. Here is a web site that tells about it. The cultivation of silk is known as sericulture. The blind, flightless moth which is responsible for the production of silk is the Bombyx mori, the "silkworm of death." Indeed, the Bombyx lays 500 or more eggs in four to six days and dies soon thereafter. The eggs are exceedingly tiny; one hundred of them weigh only one gram. From once ounce of eggs come about 30,000 worms, which eat a lot of mulberry leaves, to be sure, and produce 12 pounds of raw silk. We have some words derived from Bombyx in English. Something bombycine is silken or silk, or even made of cotton; bombycinous is of the color of the silkworm-moth (pale yellow); bombyciform is "shaped like or having the characters of a bombycid moth." But what, I wonder, is shaped like a moth except a moth? Thus, we have enough knowledge about these subjects, and we can continue our tour.

Other Tree Species in Garden City's Finnup Park

We hopped in a golf cart, and Alan began driving us around the park. Over the next hour or so he showed me about 45 more species of trees, and I am sure that if we had time to poke around, he might have been able to point out another twenty or so. Here are some of them, with an occasional comment. We saw a few Eastern Red Cedars (Juniperus virginiana), the only native Kansas evergreen tree, pointing their way to the heavens. They looked like spiky arborvitae stabbing the sky. A pair of hophornbeams (genus Ostrya) stood sentry outside the entrance of the zoo. Though these generally are understory trees, there was no larger elm or oak to shade them. Near the paper mulberry was a tree very common in KS, the Western Soapberry (Jaboncillo Sapindus drummondii). Most distinctive about this tree are the alternate pinnate leafs and, especially, the berries. These translucent yellow-covered berries hide a hard black seed within.

As we skirted the zoo fence by cart, a very pleasant feeling began to return to me, a feeling I first had in 2007. Last year was the 300th anniversary of the birth of Carolus Linnaeus, the "godfather" of our binomial nomenclature system. To honor him I spent the summer learning as many varieties of trees and other living things that I could. But, because of economic realities in 2008, I had to lay my beloved trees to the side, and I only picked them up, so to speak, in Garden City. As the memory of those events came back to me, we passed a row of Chinese Pistache by the Black Rhino pen. Immediately the Chinese Pistache outside the Univ. of Oregon School of Education came back to my mind. I so enjoy this spreading, vase-shaped tree with its lustrous leaves. Here is a picture of the leaves.

I couldn't stay in my memory too long, because we came across the Giant Reed Grass (Arundo donax), Washington Hawthorne, Russian Olive trees and an Amur Maple. One of my favorite trees in Oregon is the Tulip--Liriodendron tulipifera-- which can reach up to 150' tall in my home town. We ran into several of them in Garden City, though they seemed like "miniature" ones, reaching only 30-50' high. We ran across an Eastern White Pine, a Texas Red Oak, an English Oak and then, interestingly enough, a Bald Cypress or two. I recall seeing an impressive stand of such trees in Charleston, SC last September, and most of the time such trees are sunk into swamp waters, but there was no such swamp or even stream flowing through Finnup Park. Yet, the Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) was there. I well remember my trip to Savannah, GA last September, where I was astonished to find a Pond Cypress (Taxodium ascendens) in a city park. Indeed, a professor at Oregon State, with whom I was corresponding, decided to change a designation of one of the cypresses on that campus to a Pond Cypress after a conversation I had with him. But Garden City didn't have that much variety in the cypress; nevertheless, the Bald Cypress was a favorite.

Conclusion

Like the tour that I took with Alan, Katherine and Caverly, which ended when I was just getting started, so must this essay. But I will close by mentioning many other species of trees I saw. There was a Tanyosho Pine, a Coyote Willow, a variety of Smoke Trees, a Nuttall Oak; False Indigo; a Horsechestnut; a Hedge Maple; the beatiful Goldenrain Tree; an Evodia danielii, the low-branching Korean Evodia. I recall that there is one at the U of Oregon by Hamilton Hall, but that may in fact not be true. Guess I will just have to check! But then, a series of Silver Poplars, and Honey Locusts, with several Catalpas thrown in kept me entranced. Just when I thought we were finished we came across a favorite tree, the Paperbark Maple, which was shedding nicely for all to see, and a Gingko Biloba. The story of the "Hatfield Gingko" in Oregon is here. Then, Alan couldn't let me go without pointing to an Ohio Buckeye, a Korean Sun Pea Pear, a Black Alder, Shantung Maple, Sweet Gum and, one of my favorites, the Japanese Pagoda tree. A Bird Cherry, Russian Hawthorne and Kentucky Coffeetree (there are several exemplars of this near McArthur Court at the University of Oregon) completed the tour.

Conclusion

Alan told me that when they had a meeting of horticultural experts from around Kansas meeting in Garden City one year, he decided to offer a tour of the trees of Finnup Park. Many went along with him and were not just impressed but actually amazed at the variety and health of the trees. That, too, was my impression as a result of my July 12 tour. Some of the biggest gifts in life happen when you aren't really looking for them...

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