Trees Gallery - Scone Palace page 2

Fagus sylvatica Fagus - Latin for beech; sylvatica -from Latin silvanus, of the forest

Beech

Native across Europe, growing to a height of more than 40 m and develop a huge domed crown. The reddish brown, torpedo-shaped leaf buds form on short stalks and have a distinctive criss-cross pattern. Beech is monoeciousboth male and female flowers grow on the same tree . In April and May the tassel-like male catkins hang from long stalks at the end of twigs, while female flowers grow in pairs, surrounded by a cup. Beech woodland is shady and characterised by a dense carpet of fallen leaves and mast husks which prevent most woodland plants from growing. Only specialist shade-tolerant plants can survive beneath a beech canopy.

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Ilex aquifolium ilex : - holm oak; aquifolium - acus 'needle', folium, 'leaf'

Holly

One of very few native British hardwood evergreen trees. It can exceed 10 m in height, but is more often 2–3 m. It can live 500 years, but usually does not reach 100. Leaves are distinctive glossy green and prickly. The flowers are white, four-lobed, and pollinated by bees. Holly is dioecious there are male plants and female plants , with fruits only appearing on female plants, which require male plants nearby to fertilise them. The fruit is a bright red (or yellow) drupe stone fruit .

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Juniperus communis juniperus : - from the Latin name for the tree, possibly with the meaning 'young and fresh'; communis - Latin for common.

Juniper

One of our three native conifers (the others being yew and Scots pine), though you don't see cones on it: juniper cones are more like berries, with three fleshy scales encasing the seed. This is different to the arils on a yew tree, which is a single fleshy coating. Juniper berries are used for flavouring gin. The tree can grow to 6m tall. An Irish juniper variety, j. communis hibernica, also grows here: a more narrowly conical tree of silvery grey aspect and dense habit.

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Laburnum anagyroides Laburnum : - possibly related to Lebanon, the tree's native region; anagyroides - resembling the genus Anagyris, a genus of shrubs in the pea family.

Laburnum

A.k.a. Cytisus laburnum, common laburnum, golden chain or golden rain, a small deciduous tree or large shrub growing to 7 m. , dark green spreading branches and pendulous and pubescent twigs. It has a fine flowering display during May and June, with pea-like, golden yellow flowers densely packed in pendulous racemes up to 25 cm long, but is rather drab the rest of the year. The black seeds contain cytisine, an alkaloid somewhat poisonous to humans as well as goats and horses, especially when not ripe. The wood is hard and heavy, of a yellow/brown colour, ideal for making posts, for woodturning and as fuel. The tree is also known as false ebony since the heartwood darkens with age to almost black, one of the few dark woods native to the UK.

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Liriodendron tulipifera Leirion - Greek (λιριο) for lily>; Dendron - (δένδρο) tree; Tulipa - tulip flower; fera - bearing or producing

Tulip tree

. A.k.a. tulipwood, tuliptree, tulip poplar, whitewood, fiddletree, lynn-tree, hickory-poplar, and yellow-poplar; native to E North America. It can grow to more than 50 m, often with no limbs until it reaches 25–30 m, making it a very valuable timber tree. No longer called a hardwood, the term midwood was created expressly for the wood. The bark is brown, furrowed, aromatic and bitter. The wood is light yellow to brown, and the sapwood creamy white. Leaves are alternate, simple, pinnately veined, with four lobes. In autumn they turn a clear, bright yellow. The flowers are pale green or yellow (rarely white), with an orange band on the tepals; they yield large quantities of nectar.

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Picea orientalis picea - Latin for pitch pine; orientalis - eastern

Oriental spruce

. A.k.a. Caucasian spruce, Eastern spruce, native to Caucasia and N Turkey. An evergreen conifer making a large tree (30–45 m) of dense, conical habit.The shoots are buff-brown and moderately pubescent (hairy).

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Picea spinulosa picea - Latin for pitch pine; spinulosa - thorny or spiny

Sikkim spruce

. A large evergreen tree with a conical crown, level branches and usually pendulous branchlets, growing to 55 m, native to the eastern Himalaya, in India (Sikkim), Nepal and Bhutan. Cones are cylindric-conic, 6–12 cm long, green or tinged reddish when young, maturing glossy orange-brown to red-brown and opening 5–7 months after pollination; the scales are moderately stiff, with a bluntly pointed apex. The shoots are whitish to pale buff, and glabrous hairless .

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Pinus armandii pinus - Latin for pine, (resin); Armandii - after French missionary and plant collector Jean-Pierre Armand David

Armand's pine

. A.k.a. Chinese white pine and Mount Hua pine, a native of China, growing to 35 m with a trunk up to 1 m diameter. A member of the white pine group, p. strobus. The seeds are sold as edible pine nuts. The tree, because of its evergreen foliage, is considered by the Chinese as an emblem of longevity and immortality. Its resin is considered an animated soul-substance, the counterpart of blood in men and animals, and may be consumed with the hope of prolonging life.

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Pinus banksiana pinus - Latin for pine, (resin); Armandii - after English botanist Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820).

Jack pine

. A scrubby, straggly northern pine that is native throughout much of Canada from the Northwest Territories to Nova Scotia south to the Great Lakes and northern New England. It grows to 13m. It has strongly-curved cones, which ripen in two years, either opening at maturity or remaining closed on the tree for as much as 10 or more years. Closed cones are serotinous sealed by resin , but will open after forest fires to distribute seed for new growth.

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Pinus jeffreyi pinus - Latin for pine, (resin); jeffreyi - after John Jeffrey (1826-1854), Scottish botanical explorer.

Jeffrey pine

. A native of mountainous areas in W USA, it is a tall, erect, long-lived, single-trunk, evergreen conifer with a straight trunk and conic to rounded crown, growing to 45 m. Trunk diameter can be up 1.2 m. It has no branches on the lower half of the trunk. Mature trees have cinnamon-brown aromatic bark that is divided into scaly plates separated by deep fissures.

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Pinus mugo pinus - Latin for pine, (pitu - resin); mugo - an old Tyrolese name, likely referring to a diminutive of musk, implying an aromatic or mossy quality

Dwarf mountain pine

. A.k.a. mountain pine, scrub mountain pine, Swiss mountain pine, bog pine, creeping pine, or mugo pine. A native of S and E Alps and the Balkan peninsula, it is a low, shrubby, often multi-stemmed plant 3–6 m tall with matt-textured, thin-scaled nut-brown symmetrical cones.

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