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player ready...A volunteer hickory is growing in my backyard. No human planted it. Likely a squirrelly did the delightful deed. The rodent buried it where sun-loving prairie plants were growing, which means as the area gets shadier, those plants won’t thrive.
At first, I was not happy with the situation. But I’m learning to love it. We’re planting some understory native wildflowers such as jack-in-the-pulpit and wild geranium that bloom before leaf-out, and grow beneath hickories. Once a sapling, my hickory is now about 17 feet tall. It’s called a volunteer because it seemingly came up on its own.
Different types of hickories grow in our region. The most recognizable one when it is not a sapling is the shagbark hickory. As the tree grows, it takes on its characteristic “shaggy” bark, which can easily be seen in winter when leaves have fallen in the woods. My hickory still has fairly smooth bark, so how do I know it’s a shagbark and not a bitternut hickory or other hickory species that share similar characteristics?
Before leaf-out, you can tell by looking at parts of a twig, such as the terminal bud (the bud on the very end), lateral buds (the buds on the sides) and leaf scars (where last year’s leaves fell off). For example, a telltale characteristic of oak trees is that they have a cluster of terminal buds, while most trees only have a single terminal bud.
A bitternut hickory would have a distinctly sulfur-yellow terminal bud, longer than it is wide.
My hickory has dark reddish, oval-shaped terminal buds with scales on the end that flare out in spring to look like flower petals. Within these “petals” are the leaf buds that open up to welcome another season of photosynthesis.
March is a great time to look at buds of deciduous trees. They are starting to come alive, swelling, and gathering energy from the upward flow of sap to burst forth with flowers and green leaves.
A great place to explore oak-hickory woodlands is Pine Dunes Forest Preserve in Antioch. Look for the tall trees with the shaggy bark. You won’t miss them.
The oak-hickory forest supports biodiversity, offering food and shelter to many wildlife species. The hickory nut is eaten by woodpeckers, nuthatches, wild turkeys, blue jays, foxes, rabbits and grosbeaks, among others. The Algonquin Native Americans also would pound hickory nuts, then boil them to make a milk that added protein and fat to their winter diet of grains.
They had to know where the older hickory trees were, because it takes up to 40 years for these trees to produce nuts. My hickory has a long way to go before that happens. But it can serve other species right now. Butterfly and moth caterpillars eat the wood, foliage and plant juices of hickories.
One moth called a Judith’s underwing feeds exclusively on shagbark hickory. Moths are important to birds for food, especially the whip-poor-will, whose numbers have drastically declined. Some scientists think that’s because of the decline in moths as well as habitat. There are not many places you can go in Illinois anymore to hear a whip-poor-will sing at night.
Even in winter, a shagbark hickory serves wildlife. For example, the eastern comma butterfly, which overwinters as an adult, can find a warm, dry spot in the bark of the shagbark hickory.
Now that I have a shagbark hickory in my yard, I can add to my list of what to look for to show spring is at hand. I can admire the flowerlike leaf scales in spring, and the green catkins, the male flowers. In summer, I can search for moths and other insects on the leaves. Maybe I’ll still be alive when the hickory bears its first nut in autumn. I hope the tree survives and provides shelter and food for native species long after I am gone.
Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor and photographer for the baiduhai and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to [email protected]