island of trees: Picturing Trees for the Next Six Months

 One of the many evocative illustrations in Barbara Reid's newest book, Picture a Tree. Artwork from Picture a Tree, Barbara Reid © 2011. All rights reserved.

A few books and a notice of departure. As some of you know, I have colon cancer and I’ve reached a point in my treatment and a point in the seasons, where it’s time to retreat within. I am also working on a book, with the tentative title: Island of Trees: 50 trees, 50 tales of Montreal, due out next spring from Véhicule Press, and I couldn’t quite see continuing the column, writing the book and looking after my health all at once.

So, the island of trees will be slightly fogged in for the next six months but that shouldn’t prevent you from discovering your own islands of trees. To accompany you, I’ve prepared this annotated bibliography of a few books I have found particularly valuable, some for their spirit, others for their precision in identifying the details of trees.

I’ll start with a children’s book, reviewed in the Gazette a few Saturdays ago. It’s Barbara Reid’s Picture a Tree. Reid illustrates her numerous children’s books with Plasticine and I hope she had assistance in shaping the thousands of leaves in this book. She starts with the naked tree, “ a drawing on the sky,” then uses the trees to reflect back on us, how we’ve used trees as pirate ships, hideaways, places of solace, shelter from the sun, a repository of promise, loyally returning each spring. With each illustration, one can linger a long time, seeing new relationships between life in a tree and our lives with trees.

“A tree can be a high-rise home sweet home,” she writes, while the illustration depicts a Kentucky Coffee Tree-like sprawling high rise tree, replete with sleeping raccoons, wasps returning to the hive, young birds being fed and squirrels chasing each other. Meanwhile in the human habitat behind, the various families engage in similar pursuits.

Reid identifies no trees for that’s clearly not the point of her book. Still, with the 40 charming miniature portraits in the endpapers and forepapers, she seems to invite readers to identify – or at least recognize - the many familiar graphic forms: the shape of the ginkgo leaf and the horse chestnut, the baby white oak and the ancient pale grey beech tree, the cheery sumac, and, of course, the laconic white pine.

“Picture a tree, what do you see?” she concludes. For those of you wanting to improve your tree vision, I recommend poetry and drawing – even if neither is a regular pastime. Both demand observation. You may want nothing to do with the scientific or common name in order to keep you imagination free to name the tree as you see fit. When I work with children, they are obliged to come up with their own name before I reveal the common name. That way they can be the discoverer of the tree and analyse it with their own tools of observation and sensing.

If, however, at some stage you want more precision on the name and botanical characteristics, I recommend the following:

1) Arbres et plantes forestières du Québec et des Maritimes, by Michel Leboeuf, Édition Michel Quintin

This remarkably compact and inexpensive book is a superb introduction to our local forest. Not only does it cover trees well, presenting photographically at least five defining traits, the book also has chapters on small trees and bushes, understory plants and ferns. So, come spring with this book in hand, you will be well equipped to identify the emerging trilliums, bloodroot, coltsfoot, etc. While the text is in French, the English names of all species are provided. Furthermore, Leboeuf’s clearly written text provides a great introductory course on the ecology of our local forests.

2) Trees in Canada, by John Laird Farrar, Fitzhenry and Whiteside

Many of you likely know this bible of Canadian trees. Originating as a booklet in 1917, under the title Native Trees of Canada, the actual 502-page tome is our most complete reference book on trees growing in Canada. Very thorough though a tad heavy for a hike.

3) The Sibley Guide to Trees, David Allen Sibley, Knopf

Sibley’s name is usually associated with birds, but a few years ago he turned his hand and to writing and illustrating a beautiful and well-conceived book on tree identification and the basics of botany and plant ecology. While the book covers, principally, trees of the United States, the maps showing the tree’s territory include Canada. This book would make a great companion for a cross-continental exploration.

Of course, there are numerous other great books on trees and I will have to continue this list in the spring. In the meantime, peruse the shelves of your local library to help navigate your way to the island of trees.

island of trees: Hackberry: the tree that migrates

Illustrations coming

You know this tree from its nobbly pale park, which looks possibly diseased, perhaps with a tree’s form of leprosy. It’s simple, alternate leaves are a bright, pale green in spring. At this time of year, the leaves are paling, some arriving at a pale creamy yellow. In the forest of Île Ste- Hélène, the biggest hackberry grove I know, they are resplendent in contrast with the oranges of the sugar maples and the bright, shiny yellows of the red ash.

Until discovering this grove I knew hackberry only as a street and park tree. Tough to salt and compacted soil, the tree does well in the city as is clear by the row growing against the massive St-Louis –de-France church on Berry Street, as one approaches Roy Street. I did wonder, however, about the 1.5 metre  in diametre giant in the Mount Royal Cemetery. Until this tree lost a major bit of its girth to the 1998 Ice Storm, is was considered the biggest hackberry in Quebec. (You’ll find it named and numbered in the Cemetery’s self-guided tree walk). Most likely, therefore, it is older than the cemetery, which opened in 1852 and is a vestige of the original forest, composed of red oak, white pine, sugar maple, black cherry, beech, elm and white ash.

The island of Montreal is the most northerly extreme for this Carolinian tree that flourishes in the Pelee Islands on the southwest end of Lake Erie and at other points south. Some believe, in fact that the tree has only been in the Windsor area since the turn of the 20^th century and has been migrating northeast along the Great Lakes-St Lawrence Valley ever since.

That doesn’t however, explain the old tree at the Cemetery, unless it indicates another migration route for waterfowl and wild turkeys, two of the trees greatest fans. You see, the hackberrry, whose original name was the hagberry, an old English name for the sweet European cherry tree, Prunus avium, produces a sweet, dark blue berry every fall and migrating birds regale in the fleshy fruit, then fly off and deposit the seed at their next island or shoreline stop. This is why we find such concentrations of the tree on Île Ste-Hélène, Île aux hérons and Île Dorval. And I wonder if on Mount Royal, when Beaver Lake was a true pond and Le ruisseau de la montagne flowed freely, if the mountain too was not a favourite spot for both migratory birds and hackberry trees.

I should make clear that the hackberry is not a cherry tree, but stands in a family of its own, the Celtis family. Celtis occidentalis is the name of our native species while there are at least two other more southerly North American species and several Eurasian ones. Until recently, the tree was considered a member of the elm family, mostly due to the asymmetry and toothiness of the leaf, and the tree’s overall shape. The flower and fruit, however, bear no similarity to the elm, which produces its flower and samara type (winged) seed early in spring, often before the leaves emerge. The hackberry, on the other hand, produces both its male (pollen) and female (seed-producing) flowers at the same time as the leaves are emerging in mid-May. The fruit ripens only in the fall. If you look up, there’s a good chance you’ll see some of the dark blue berries still hanging from their single stems.

While the tree many not be an elm, it has been widely planted to replace the great old trees, due to its resistance to salt, drought and compacted soil, as well as its lovely shape and colour.

From my point of view, the bark is the most alluring characteristic of this unusual tree. Always a pale greenish grey, sometimes bumpy, sometimes showing the lines of a mysterious contour map, sometimes –though rarely –smooth, the bark stands out amidst its darker-barked accomplices. The bark is also a handy shelter for migrating monarch butterflies while they collect at Point Pelee, waiting for the perfect updrafts to moment to cross Lake Erie. After a month of so of flying and coasting, our royal insect settles in its winter throne in the Oyamel Pine tree, high in the Mexican mountains.

island of trees: The pear that bears no pears

At the corner of Berri and Roy streets in the Plateau Mont-Royal borough of Montreal grows this Chanticleer pear, Pyrus calleryana Chantecler. Its leaves are just beginning to change colour from glossy dark green to yellow. In a week's time, there will be reds and oranges too. Note the fruit that bear no resemblance to our notion of a pear. Illustrations: Charles L'Heureux.

So closely do we associate the pear tree with fruit having the pear shape, we miss a whole series of trees that are, in fact pears, but whose small, round and hard fruit most closely resemble a small crabapple. For several years, there were three lovely, small-fruit bearing trees on my regular walking circuits that I couldn’t identify because I was unaware of the “other” type of pear.

One of these is the snow pear, Pyrus nivalis, which, true to its common name, has a snow-dusted quality to its leaf. When I first noticed this tree, it was spring and the recently emerged leaves were grouped together in closed clusters, resembling Chinese lanterns. It was a most beautiful and bewildering site as I had no clue what this tree with grey furry, elliptical leaves could be.

Later, flat clusters of five-petalled white flowers emerged from the upper branches, which reached the third floor balcony of the this Laval Avenue triplex just north of Duluth on the east side. Clearly this was something in the rose family and though the pale bark had a vague cherry quality in the way it was beginning to crack, it was too early for cherry flowers.

Then there was the mystery tree on the southwest corner of Milton and Aylmer streets in the McGill Ghetto. This one shone in winter with its lustrous pale grey bark and the masses of tiny red fruit dotting the whiteness of the surrounding winter sky and the pale grey brick of its host house . The bark was clearly not that of a crab apple.

Finally, Eric Champagne, horticulturist at McGill University identified it simply as an ornamental pear. We’ve yet to pin down the species.

But the pear that had me most confused was the one illustrated here. For years I have walked by this corner, at Berri and Roy streets, past the numerous lindens in the Thérèse Daviau Park, on the other side of Berri, on my way to the fruit store or Caisse Pop. In spring, it is full of white flowers. In summer, a bright, dark, shiny green, the plastic-like finish on the rigid leaves glistening in the sun. Most remarkable, however, was the fact that, in fall, its leaves hang on longer than most other trees and change colour, from green to yellow, to orange, to red – a most spectacular show.

This pear is known as the Chanticleer, Pyrus calleryana Chanteclerc. A native of China and Vietnam, this hardy pear arrived in Europe mid-19^th century when Joseph-Marie Callery, an Italian-French sinologue, sent the first specimens from China. In 1909, the tree imported to  North America for agricultural experimentation. To this day, according to Wikipedia, it is used as rootstock for edible pears, the fruit we recognize as the pear, such as the bosc and nashi.

Only in the 1950s was it used as an ornamental tree, its hardiness in urban conditions, uniformity of shape and three-season beauty, finally recognized. In Montreal, according to Martin Gaudet, foreman of the City’s nursery, the Chanteclerc pear has been planted for the past 10 years, most notably in the St-Michel borough as a sidewalk tree on St-Hubert St., between Faillon and Villeray streets. Since 2008, the nursery has been cultivating the tree for future city plantations.

While Gaudet, lauds the beauty and hardiness of this tree, he cautions that while it may show less bacterial burn on its leaves than its cousin the apple/crabapple, it is still susceptible. As he puts it: “Qui dit rosasé, dit brûlure bactérienne et le poirier n’y échappent pas.”

Still, after at least 15 years, my own beauty on Berri St. still shines, blight-free.

island of trees: Are pears making a comeback?

Next treewalk: Sunday, Oct. 9, at 10:30 au Gazébo Mordecai Richeler, to the south of the Tam Tams and the angel on Park Ave. Ends at 12:30 at Camillien-Houde look-out/parking lot. Click here for list of other fall walks.

This healthy pear, growing across from the Bagg St. Shul is full of pears and has proven its resistance to salt.

Illustrations: Charles L'Heureux

Live on, old trees, in your hale green age!

Long, long may your shadows last

With your blossomed boughs and golden fruit,

Loved emblems of the past.

W.H. Coyle, 1849, in his poem, To The Old Pear Trees of Detroit

As I was perusing the Internet for information on the history of the pear tree in Quebec, I stumbled upon this old poem, referred to in the Encyclopédie du patrimoine culturel de l’amérique française. Apparently, in the vicinity of Windsor and Detroit, there are several huge pear trees dating back to the 18^th century when the first land concessions were made along the Detroit River. According to the Encyclopédie, these were planted in groups of 12, representing the 12 apostles and they were known as the Jesuit pear trees. One tree, representing Judas would be outside the circle. These trees are of such cultural significance to the Franco-Americans (in the continental sense of America) that the pear tree was at the centre of the City of Detroit’s logo for its 300^th anniversary, in 2001.

At the time this poem was written those trees would have been roughly 100 years old, meaning the remaining Jesuit pear trees, as they are known, are roughly 250 years old. While I was unable to pin down the oldest pear in the Montreal area, I am certain that there are some of the same age. After all, the young pears planted in the Detroit area may well have originated in the pear orchards of the Sulpicians, on the south flank of Mount Royal, which date back to 1670.

Pears, member of the Rose family and the Pyrus genus, are not native to North America. In fact, their origins appear to stretch from Western Europe to the Orient. For a long time, it was believed that the pear originated in China but archaeological evidence from France shows that pears were part of the diet of prehistoric humans, and that the tree was one of the few European trees to survive the last ice age. However, according to Bernard Bertrand, writing in L’Herbier boisé, the two strains of pears may well have separate origins. Those trees bearing small round pears, resembling the smallest of the crabapples, being of European origin, descendants of the wild pear, Pyrus pyraster, while the juicy, pear-shaped pears are the descendants of Pyrus communis, the main ancestor of all our cultivated pears.

Somewhere along its history in North America, the pear took second place to the apple, as a fall fruit. Like the apple, the pear is both good to eat, fresh from the branch, as is equally good in its various transformations: sauces, butters, syrups, wines and juice. However, pears, once ripe, are a softer fruit and last only a few days, when refrigerated. Apples, on the other hand, remain firm and may be stored for months with proper control of temperature, light and humidity.

Still, other popular fruit, such as cherries and peaches, also have a limited shelf life, yet seem far more abundant in our markets and grocery stores than does the pear – at least, the locally grown pear.

This may change, however as Quebec farmers look for new fruit trees to plant. At St-Joachim-de-Shefford, for instance, citizens, in an effort to diversity the local economy and keep its population, have created a large poiriculteur cooperative. The town, which lies on the sunny side of Mount Shefford, not far from Granby, now calls itself “le pays de la poire.” Since 2002, the cooperative has been planting pear trees on numerous tracts of land, some of which are lent by landowners, and they are now 5,000 trees and aiming for 10,000 which will make it one of the most important pear-growing areas in Canada.

Closer to home, pears seem to be doing well in the most urban of conditions. In my own neck of the woods, on the southwest corner of Bagg and Clark streets, a healthy pear tree is laden with fruit on a site that’s subject to saltspray. Its shiny green leaves, which have something of the feel of plastic, look much better than the leaves of many garden apple trees and the fruit is untarnished.

Is this a tree that ought to be more frequently planted as a street tree and orchard tree? Stay tuned.

island of trees: Return of the elm!?

Treewalk today: Pointe St-Charles, meet @ 4:30,  1900 Wellington, old Bank of Montreal, corner Ste-Madeleine, prelude to fundraising event @ 7 pm @ same venue. Free of charge for those attending fundraiser (see previous blog for details and for full list of fall walks), $10 for others. Finishes @ 5:30 pm.

This American elm, self-seeded and growing at the corner of Dr. Penfield and McTavish streets, is in full form and is testament to the fact that elms are alive and well and living on the street -- at least until they reach 20-30 years. Several other elms grow just north on McTavish. Illustrations: Charles L'Heureux

"But the survival of wild places and wild things, like the permanence of noteworthy architecture, or the opera, or a multiplicity of languages, or old shade trees in old neighborhoods, is not a priority for most people."

Edward Hoagland

Is this true? Pieter Sijpkes, the architect who introduced me last week to his favourite tree, the Wellington Street Elm, passed this quote on to me. He agrees with Hoagland, believing that, in large art, our appreciation for the permanent or, at least, of entities with greater longevity than that of our own species, is small. Better to take down an old tree or an old building, he says, so as to put up condos, save cars from being soiled by tree debris, prevent damage to foundations, etc. rather than finding ways of accommodating the culture, history and services offered by each.

But I’m not sure I agree with Hoagland and Sijpkes where trees are concerned. I’ve frequently been impressed by the Herculean efforts exerted to save a particular tree or entire species of tree. This is perhaps no more true than where the American elm is concerned. In fact, as I write, numerous elm angels are at work in cities, like Quebec, Guelph, Fredericton and Winnipeg, to both preserve the remaining healthy trees and to breed those trees that appear to be immune to Dutch elm disease (DED).

King of those angels might be the late Henry Kock, a horticulturist who launched the University of Guelph Arboretums’ Elm Recovery Project. Beginning in the late ‘90s, Kock traveled throughout Ontario collecting twigs of seemingly healthy mature elms, in what amounted to an elm dating service. He could see that many of the elms, untouched by the disease, were solitary and far from the next healthy elm, making cross-pollination of the tree impossible. The twigs were grafted to elm rootstock and deliberately infected with the fungal DED. The surviving clones were considered immune and transplanted to the seed orchard along with other immune trees in order that they reach sexual maturity and cross-pollinate, thereby enlarging the gene pool of immune trees.

Since the program, 600 trees have been grafted and 70 have survived inoculation. Ultimately, according to Kock’s successor, Sean Fox,  that number will be whittled down to the top 30 “to keep in the gene bank.”  Since it takes roughly 12 years for the elm to produce seed, none of these super-elms is yet ready for larger scale, commercial cultivation. Fox estimates that “within 10 years, we’ll have disease-resistant cultivars.”

What impresses me about this program is that these are human heads and hands speeding up the process of evolution. Mainly, it’s citizens that alert the Guelph program of healthy elms and without them and their donations, the program would not survive. “We don’t receive government support,” notes Fox. Clearly, there are many citizens pining for the return of the 30-metre high trees which, in their heyday in the 1950s, completely shaded many a street in eastern cities, including De Lorimier which, according to Martin Gaudet, supervisor of City of Montreal’s nursery, “was spectacular.”

Gaudet, who knows such sites only from archival photographs, regrets that the City has no program in place to create a gene pool of Montreal’s healthy mature elms. In the early ‘60s, however, the late Réné Pomerleau, an Agriculture Canada mycologist (fungus specialist) working on site in l’Assomption (which later became the City nursery), pioneered a DED-resistant American elm, known as “l’Assomption.” So, Quebec had its own elm.

“There are still a few out here,” says Gaudet, on the phone from the nursery, “but it never really took off.”

Other cultivars of the great elm, however, are being tested for DED-resistance. Ulmus Americana, “Brandon,” for instance, which was developed in Alberta, are being tested in their University Street sidewalk plots, between St-Jacques and St-Antoine streets. Planted in the late ‘90s, “the trees are very regular – they look like mushrooms,” says Gaudet, explaining that they are all clones. While they won’t reach the heights of the original American elm, they will grow to impressive 15 metres high and 12 wide. Will that satisfy the desire of some of us for a return of the complete elm canopy? If not, it’s good to know that the Guelph cultivars are waiting in the wings.

A fundraiser and this fall's treewalks/Soirée bénéfice et l'horaire des promenades de l'automne

As you'll see from this poster, my roster of treewalks this falls kicks off with a walk in Pointe St-Charles to preceed a concert that dear friends have organized to help me through the coming months of treatment for colon cancer. So, you could plan this Saturday with a treewalk, 4:30 - 5:30, a supper in the neighbourhood, followed by a silent auction of works of arts and crafts, and an evening of apples, beer and superb entertainment -- all in a  former Bank of Montreal, converted into a living/performance space by Montreal architect and long-time citizen of the Pointe, Pieter Sijpkes. This building is also wonderfully accessible by bike or public trans: just follow Wellington Ave. from Old Montreal, or take the #61 bus from the McGill College Metro, exit Union St. The treetour leaves from the same building, 1900 Wellington, and is part of the evening package, so no extra charge.

Here's the schedule of subsequent walks:

Sunday, September 25: Mount Royal Cemetery, in English, 10 - noon, followed by refreshments, leaves from main gate on de la Forêt, freewill offering to the cemetery.


Sunday, October 9: Giving Thanks to the Mountain: le piedmont du Parc du Mont Royal, bilingue, 10:30 - 12:30, $15. On se rencontre au Gazebo Mordecai Richler (devant le quartier général des pompiers). Inscription: bronwynchester@gmail.com/514-284-7384.


Sunday, October 16: McGill University Upper Campus: Fruits Amidst the Mansions, bilingual, 9 - 11 a.m., $15, meet on the steps of the Redpath Museum, bronwynchester@gmail.com/514-284-7384 to register.

island of trees: An elm that persists

A rare site: A huge and healthy American elm, growing on Wellington St., near Charlevoix, in Montreal's Pointe St-Charles borough. The tree is three times the height of this working class cottage of, roughly, the 1890s, and likely older.  Note the jagged, asymmetrical, alternate leaves, typical of all elms. Illustrations: Charles L'Heureux

Two images, both iconic of the Eastern North American countryside: The first is lone American elm, in perfect health, its gracefully ascending parasol of leaf-thick branches up high in a farmers’ sky. Think of that superb specimen growing by highway 417, south side, roughly two thirds of the way to Ottawa. The second is the same species, dead but still standing, the parasol gone, bleached silver over the decades since starved by Dutch Elm Disease.

We love the elm and hate the disease. I get more questions about the American elm than any other tree. “Are they still around?”  being the most common. Yes, as a matter of fact and, at least until a certain age, thriving. Even – perhaps especially – in the city.

Peter Sijpkes knows this because almost every day for the 35 years he has lived in Pointe St-Charles, he has passed by one of the city’s oldest elms and the tree still appears to be in top health. Its mighty trunk, measuring roughly five metres and is three times the height of its host house. The tree, which is at least 150 years old, would have been a scrawny thing at the time, resembling all those wispy elms you see lining farmers’ drainage ditches, their silhouettes resembling the hairdo of Sideshow Bob, of Simpson’s fame, in various stages of dishevelment.

The street is not a tree-lined residential street, where, on occasion, one still finds old elms. Rather, it’s a stark stretch of Wellington Street, near Charlevoix, across the street from an ugly glass factory, which dominates the immediately vicinity with a 24-hour industrial hum. Marguerite Bourgeoys Park, to the east of the factory looks lovely with its green grass, old trees and sculptures but the noise repels would-be patrons. The 19^th century houses too are attractive – the brick ones clearly working class, the stone ones once homes of notaries, doctors and the like – but you worry for the noise and incessant traffic and think: Thank God, the residents have this miraculous tree – the other dominant element - to both soften the hot, sharp edges of the street and factory parking lot, but also to provide shade, and sound to mask the hum.

Sijpkes, a retired professor of architecture, likens the tree to “half a Gothic cathedral,” and wonders why more majestic trees are not being planted in his neighbourhood and in the city, in general. I remind him that big trees need big space and there are scant signs of us willingly giving up car space to free up more earth for vegetation.

As we’re looking up, following the paths of the 14 or so secondary trunks that part from a common point like a 30-metre bouquet, a woman next door asks if we’re assessing the tree in order that it be cut down. She lives in a pretty stone house and she’s concerned about the damage being done to her foundations. Charles L’Heureux, who’s walked this stretch before, has also heard from the owner of the cottage hosting the elm, that a root has actually come through the foundations.

I understand the concerns of homeowners. The truth is that tree roots don’t break into pipes or foundations but if there’s already a crack, they’ll seize the opportunity for water or nutrients. Once the roots have made their way in, they expand and can cause damage. In the case of this elm, if we lived in a province that considered extraordinary trees as heritage sites – just as we do with other forms of architecture – these houses would be evaluated for free and, in order to make the changes to accommodate the tree, the homeowners would not be stuck paying the bill for what is, in practice, a public institution. After all, when a public highway is to be widened and houses are in the way, it’s not the homeowner that pays to have her house moved farther back.

Given the obvious good health of this tree, I wondered if it was a subject of research by plant pathologists in Quebec. In Ontario, for instance, the University of Guelph collects cell samples from old elms that appear to be untouched by Dutch elm disease in order to test them for true immunity (as opposed to simply having been missed by the elm bark beetle which carries the deadly fungus) and to create a gene bank of those trees in order to breed disease resistant elms and enhance the genetic diversity. There’s not quite the same program here but there are other approaches to saving the great elms.

Stay tuned for Return of the Elm?! next week. In the meantime, you can visit the Pointe St-Charles elm next Saturday during my treewalk and another of the greats the following Sunday during my treewalk in Mount Royal Cemetery. Details maybe found in the subsequent blog.