FORESTRY - TREE INVENTORY
Shingle Oak
Quercus imbricaria
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54227 (Long) -87.24673
Diameter: 12.7

Abundant in the lower Ohio valley and middle of Mississippi valley. Bark: Light brown, scaly; on young stems light brown, smooth. Branchlets slender, dark green and shining at first, later become light brown, finally dark brown. Wood: Pale reddish brown, sapwood lighter; heavy, hard coarse-grained; used for shingles and sometimes in construction.

Sweet Gum
Liquidambar styraciflua
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54217 (Long) -87.24641
Diameter: 16.6

The wood is used for furniture, interior finish, paper pulp, veneers and baskets of all kinds.

Poision Ivy
Rhus toxicodendron
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54217 (Long) -87.24641
Diameter: --

It grows throughout much of North America and all U.S. states except Alaska, Hawai‘i, and California, and is normally found in wooded areas, especially along edge areas. It also grows in exposed rocky areas and in open fields and disturbed areas. It causes a very irritating rash.

Cherry Bark Oak
Quercus falcata
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54177 (Long) -87.25489
Diameter: 21.2

Gets it's name from its pagoda shaped leaves and because the bark of older trees tend to have scaly bark which resembles that of black cherry trees. Cherrybark oak also closely resembles southern red oak but has a better formed trunk.

Post Oak
Quercus minor
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54137 (Long) -87.24557
Diameter: 12.8

A medium-sized tree abundant throughout the South Central U.S. where it forms pure stands in the prairie transition area. This slow-growing oak typically occupies rocky or sandy ridges and dry woodlands with a variety of soils and is considered drought resistant.

Pin Oak
Quercus palusris
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54111 (Long) -87.24521
Diameter: 10.5

Pin Oak is one of the most utilized in the midwest and eastern U.S. Popular due to the attractive pyramidal shape and straight trunk. Green, glossy leaves give way to brilliant red to bronze fall color attracting attention in the landscape.

Mockernut Hickory
Hicoria alba
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54107 (Long) -87.24506
Diameter: 14.1

Mockernuts are preferred mast for wildlife, particularly squirrels, which eat green nuts. Black bears, foxes, rabbits, beavers, and white-footed mice feed on the nuts, and sometimes the bark. The white-tailed deer browse on foliage and twigs and also feed on nuts. Nuts are a minor source of food for ducks, quail, and turkey.

Shagbark Hickory
Carya ovata
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54105 (Long) -87.24495
Diameter: 11.4

The tough resilient properties of the wood make it suitable for products subject to impact and stress. The sweet nuts, once a staple food for American Indians, provide food for wildlife. The most distinctive of all the hickories because of its loose-plated bark.

Winged Elm
Ulmus alata
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54044 (Long) -87.24485
Diameter: 8.2

A very hardy, small-to medium-sized tree in a wide range of habitats throughout much of the southern Midwest and Southeastern U.S. Used principally for furniture, hardwood dimension and flooring, boxes, and crates. Elm's excellent resistance to splitting has made it a choice wood for the manufacture of high quality hockey sticks. The manufacture of furniture continues to increase the demand for elm for bent parts of chairs such as rockers and arms.

Red Mulberry
Morus rubra
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54026 (Long) -87.24496
Diameter: 4.1

The highest use of red mulberry is for its large, sweet fruits. These are a favored food of most birds and a number of mammals including opossum, raccoon, fox squirrels, and gray squirrels. The fruits also are used in jellies, jams, pies, and drinks. Red mulberry is used locally for fenceposts because the heartwood is relatively durable. Other uses of the wood include farm implements, cooperage, furniture, interior finish, and caskets (7).

Catalpa
Catalpa speciosa
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54017 (Long) -87.24506
Diameter: 6.4

An excellent tree where fast growth is desired. Striking flowers that appear in early summer. Catalpas can withstand city conditions while adding interest to landscapes. Should not be planted where fruit and flowers can drop on sidewalks as they are slippery after they fall for a short period of time. Catalpa trees are traditional sources of fish bait. Catalpa worms, the larvae of Catalpa Sphinx Moths, are eagerly sought in early summer by anglers.

Blackberry Bush
Rubus fruitcosus
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54016 (Long) -87.24609
Diameter: --

Blackberries are excellent sources of iron and vitamin C. Can be eaten fresh or baked into pies, cobblers, and other desserts. Also provides food for wildlife and birds.

Northern Red Oak
Quercus rubra
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54548 (Long) -87.24501
Diameter: 10.5

The northern red oak is one of the most important oaks for timber production in North America. The wood is of high value. Northern red oak has been extensively planted as an ornamental because of its symmetrical shape and brilliant fall foliage. The acorns are an important food for squirrels deer, turkey, mice, voles, and other mammals and birds.

Grape Vine
Vitis vinifera
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.53965 (Long) -87.24684
Diameter: --

The wild grape vine climbs with the aid of tendrils. Most grape vines produce deeply lobed leaves similar to the cultivated grape. Wild grapes grow in pyramidal, hanging bunches and are black-blue to amber, or white when ripe. The best place to look for wild grapes is on the edges of forested areas.

Green Ash
Fraxinus lanceolata
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.53965 (Long) -87.24684
Diameter: 17.7

Medium to tall tree for farmstead and field windbreaks, riparian
plantings, and highway beautification. Seeds are eaten by birds and mammals. Trees provide cover and nesting sites for birds.

Stinging Nettle
Urtica dioica
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.53965 (Long) -87.24685
Diameter: --

Can grow up to 1-2 m tall in the summer and dying down to the ground in winter. It has very distinctively yellow, widely spreading roots.

River Birch
Betula nigra
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.53949 (Long) -87.24694
Diameter: 7.3

The cinnamon-colored, exfoliating bark of the River Birch is spectacular in the winter. Lustrous, medium-green leaves. Most borer resistant birch. Tolerant of both wet soils and dry summers. The catkins of the River Birch are used by redpolls and pine siskins. The foliage is eaten by deer and other browsers.

Sugar Berry
Celtis laevigata
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.53979 (Long) -87.24663
Diameter: 13.2

Almost identical to hackberry. Fruit is popular with winter birds, especially the cedar waxwing, mockingbird, and robin. Little value for deer. Is a small to medium-sized tree with alternate, simple, leaves 2 to 5 inches long.

White Oak
Quercus alba
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54062 (Long) -87.24715
Diameter: 9.4

Although called the white oak it is very unusual to find an individual with white bark; the usual color is an ashen gray. In the forest it reaches a magnificent height. In the open it develops into a massive broad-topped tree with great limbs striking out at wide angles. The acorns are small relative to most oaks, but are a valuable wildlife food, notably for turkeys, wood ducks, pheasants, grackles, jays, nuthatches, thrushes, woodpeckers, rabbits, squirrels and deer.

Red Bud
Cercis canadensis
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54098 (Long) -87.24715
Diameter: 2.0

The Redbud tree is a relatively small tree with spreading branches and a small short trunk. The Redbud is a poplar ornamental tree, which can be found in many gardens and streetscapes. The tree is one of the earliest flowering trees.

Honey Locust
Gleditsia triacanthos
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54195 (Long) -87.25211
Diameter: 8.2

Produces a high quality, durable wood that polishes well. Also used for posts and rails since it works with soil so well and takes a long time to rot. Thornless honeylocust seed pods and seeds are consumed by livestock and wildlife such as rabbits, deer, squirrels and bobwhite. The flowers provide a good source for bee food.

Box Elder
Acer negundo
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.5417 (Long) -87.25197
Diameter: 4.0

Boxelder grows commonly along the banks of streams and rivers Boxelder has a soft wood that has no commercial value, but is important for wildlife and the stabilization of stream banks where it grows.

Trumpet Vine
Campsis radicans
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54227 (Long) -87.24673
Diameter: 12.7

The flowers are very attractive to hummingbirds, and many types of birds like to nest in the dense foliage. It's blooms are beautiful in shades of red, orange and yellow and attract hummingbirds, wasps and bees plus birds in the winter attracted by the pods.

Silver Maple
Acer saccharinum
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.5414 (Long) -87.25165
Diameter: 12.9

Browsed by deer and rabbits, seeds eaten by squirrels, fair cover for songbirds. Useful in parks and large landscape areas with moist soils. The silver maple is a relatively fast-growing deciduous tree, commonly reaching a height of 20-30 m. It is often found along waterways and in wetlands.

Sericea Lespedeza
Lespedeza cuneata
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54121 (Long) -87.25153
Diameter: --

Quail will roost and rabbits will hide in it. Annual weeds provide good roost cover, and blackberry brambles provide escape cover without invading as aggressively. In addition, sericea deters other plant species from developing, which reduces the diversity of plant foods and additional cover needed to support wildlife.

River Birch
Petula nigra
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54081 (Long) -87.25117
Diameter: 3.5

The cinnamon-colored, exfoliating bark of the River Birch is spectacular in the winter. Lustrous, medium-green leaves. Most borer resistant birch. Tolerant of both wet soils and dry summers. The catkins of the River Birch are used by redpolls and pine siskins. The foliage is eaten by deer and other browsers.

Persimmon
Diospyros virginiana
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54068 (Long) -87.25104
Diameter: 3.5

Common persimmon has distinctive thick, dark gray to black bark that is broken into scaly, square blocks. Has a messy fruit and is an interesting native tree that is suited for use in parks, golf courses and naturalized areas. form; usually has a symmetrical outline. Fruit presents a litter problem, and attracts flies and opossums as well as raccoons, skunks, foxes, deer and songbirds.

Winged Sumac
Rhus copallinum
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54072 (Long) -87.24959
Diameter: 2.0

Sumac serves primarily as a winter emergency food for wildlife. Ring-necked pheasant, bobwhite quail, wild turkey, and about 300 species of songbirds include sumac fruit in their diet. It is also known to be important only in the winter diets of ruffed grouse and the sharp-tailed grouse. Fox squirrels and cottontail rabbits eat the sumac bark. White-tail deer like the fruit and stems.

Sycamore
Platanus occidentalis
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54192 (Long) -87.24714
Diameter: 10

They are best suited for soils which are moist and do not dry out. Trees in the Sycamore family are valued for their wood for everything from musical instruments to cutting boards. Songbirds eat the seeds. Large, old, hollow trees serve as roosting and den sites for wildlife

Milkweed
Asclepias tuberosa
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54192 (Long) -87.24741
Diameter: --

Milkweeds are an important nectar source for bees and other nectar seeking insects, and a larval food source for monarch butterflies and their relatives, as well as a variety of other herbivorous insects (including numerous beetles, moths, and true bugs) specialized to feed on the plants despite their chemical defenses.

Coral Berry
Symphoricarpos orbiculatus
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54192 (Long) -87.24741
Diameter: 12.7

Deciduous shrub which typically occurs in open woods, fields, pastures and thickets. Binds the soil and prevents erosion. Attractive to birds and songbirds.

Red Maple
Acer rubrum
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54285 (Long) -87.24592
Diameter: 5

Best known for its brilliant deep scarlet foliage in autumn. red maple is adaptable to a very wide range of site conditions, perhaps more so than any other tree in eastern North America. It can be found growing in swamps, on poor dry soils, and most anywhere in between. Red maple is a highly desirable wildlife browse food. Elk and white-tailed deer esp. use the current season's growth of red maple and aspen as an important source of winter food. Red maple, sugar maple, and paper birch trees cut any time after leaf fall provide browse as nutritious than trees cut immediately before leaf fall.

Sassafras
Sassafras albidum
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54306 (Long) -87.2461
Diameter: 2

The bark of the mature trunk is thick, red-brown, and deeply furrowed. The wood is light, soft, weak, and brittle. All parts of the plants are very fragrant.

Walnut (black)
Juglans nigra
GPS Coordinates: (Lat) 37.54432 (Long) -87.24712
Diameter: 8.3

Black Walnut is highly prized for its dark-colored true heartwood. It is heavy and strong, yet easily split and worked.


Click here to download PDF Myer Creek Park Tree and Plant Inventory Brochure.
Funding for this was provided in part by the Urban Forestry Program of the USDA Forest Service
& the Kentucky Division of Forestry.

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