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Any tree experts around? | by Kickstart | 2006-11-19 12:55:59 |
| It's a pine or fir |
by Medievalist |
2004-07-13 07:53:53 |
If you really want to know you need to get a picture of the seed cones (preferably both closed and open) and a good shot of the bark. The pics you already provided show the branch layout (looks like opposite, radial asymmetric) and the needles (medium long, round, opposite, look soft).
To me, (not an expert) it looks pretty much like recent growth Eastern White Pine, very common on the Atlantic seaboard and found nearly everywhere in North America. But all the pines look very much alike to me, so don't take that to the bank!
Pretty poor quality specimens in the pics. The wood will be loose-grained, pitchy, and extremely flammable (very good for old-fashioned pine-knot torches, but very bad for heating or cooking, because it'll burn way too quick and with dangerously high creosote deposition inside the chimney) as well as difficult to work (too sticky when green, too brittle when dried). Of course, softwood is more rot-resistant than hardwoods in outdoor use, but only after it's been peeled and dried (before that the sugary sap and inner bark of felled pines and firs is an insect delicatessen). When the trees shed pollen it will accumulate everywhere in yellow drifts and when the sap rises it will shower down in great sticky goobers for weeks. Don't park your car under such trees during sappy season - if you have to, keep it well waxed and use kerosene to get the stickum off.
I'd say the best thing to do with those trees is let them alone. Soft-needled conifers make a good roadside barrier for traffic noise and they could conceivably promote the growth of higher quality seedlings that would mature in a few hundred years. They will limit species diversity in the area immediately underneath them because of the acidity of the fallen needles, but the area appears to be well adapted to acid soil already (but, I'm not an expert on soil science either.)
PS: The flowers are beautiful! |
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