Mount Olivet Cemetery Tree Walk

Littleleaf Linden Story

Entering this beautifully landscaped garden-cemetery, you are greeted by a large gorgeous tree standing sentinel just East of the entry gate. This tree is a runner up to the county champion little leaf linden (Tilia Cordata). Linden trees have always been a favorite for landscaping since they don't drop huge leaves like a sycamore or sticky fruit like a Mulberry. Instead, it provides year round beauty with its strong upward turned limbs, dark grooved bark, cute little samara seeds (better known as helicopters among the children), and heart shaped leaves that always seem to be fluttering in the breeze due to their small size. 

In addition to landscapers and humans, this tree is also a favorite for wildlife. Maybe this is why it is sometimes called “the giving tree.” Other times it receives the name of  “bee tree” since it evolved uniquely in symbiosis with a tiny aphid that will chomp its way through the leaves and dispose of a sticky liquid called ‘honeydew.’ This gooey dew is a favorite energy shake for several types of bees. In early spring, you will hear the hum of the insects as they delight, not only in the nectar of the tiny cream colored flowers, but also in the unique honeydew protein shake provided only by the linden tree and its aphid. Lightning bugs also love slowly rising in this tree and this is the key larval plant for the red-spotted cloak butterflies.  Birds, squirrels, rabbits, and voles  -and many humans- enjoy its samara seeds. Due to its large amount of foliage it can produce a very deep shade when fully grown; due to this and its bee-attracting capabilities, they are traditionally planted on the windward side of orchards to help break the wind and help attract insect pollinators.

The oldest linden tree is the Najevnik linden tree. It lives on in Slovenia and is said to be over 700 years old! Several other linden trees that were left alone also have been marked as over 500 years of age. Linden trees are often referred to in music and prose for their emblematic rounded canopy, impressive height of up to 130 feet, thick shade and beauty. What many people do not know is that everything on the Linden tree is edible: the leaves make a nice salad (especially when  they’re still relatively new) with just a touch of vinaigrette. For hundreds of years, people have also used parts of the linden tree, including the leaves, flowers, wood, and bark for food and medicinal purposes, be it as a calming agent or as a sedative. Hence the Linden Flower or “tilia tea”  which is effective and gentle enough even for infants to calm stomachs and help bring on sleep. 

North America: The most typical Linden tree in North America is the Basswood (Tilia Americana)- it looks very much like the European Linden but is a bit smaller in stature and has much larger leaves. The American Linden is also a useful large shade tree in the Malvaceae (mallow) family that is found in all areas of North Carolina. It is native to eastern North America but found especially in the mountains where it is a common and valuable timber tree. Since its wood is relatively soft, it is often used for pulp, paper, and whittling. The cambium of this tree is very fibrous and strong  -also known as Bast (hence ‘basswood’) - and was therefore used by indigenous people to the Americas to make ropes, cordages, textiles and mats. The Ojibwe for example used it to tie together their wigwams.

Mythology: The sweet smelling linden tree with its heart-shaped leaves is associated with Freya, the Norse Goddess of truth, love, battle, fertility, and death (yes, she’s the main goddess). It was believed that you could not tell a lie under the linden tree. In Greece and Eastern Europe, the linden tree was used in numerous rituals, including divination, marriage, fertility, and healing. In Romania, and other Slavic countries, the linden held divine presence and was thought to be a link between life and death. In Germany, this tree is a favorite (some call the European LInden the German Linden tree) and symbolizes justice and peace - it is often mentioned in old folklore and iconic songs.

This tree hasn’t changed in its appearance since the Mesozoic Era which ranged from 245-65 million years ago, same as some Dawn redwoods and conifers. It is the longest existing temperate tree species -followed by Oak which came at the end of the Mesozoic- and the only survivor of the Ginkgoaceae family. It is also called the Maidenhair tree because this deciduous tree resembles the maidenhair fern. Today, it grows naturally in South East China and has become very popular across temperate regions due to its beautiful symmetrical shape and distinctive fan-leaf shape (the name biloba means two-lobed) unique to the tree world. It is a resilient tree which routinely grows to 1,000 years of age, The oldest one of these beauties is the Li Jiawan Grand Ginkgo King estimated to be between 4,500-5,000 years old. It grows at an elevation of around 4,200 feet and it’s almost 100 feet tall. It’s a male tree considered the largest ginkgo tree on earth, surrounded by low-lying crops in a valley.

The ‘grandfathers’ or ‘ancient ones’ – the trees that live for several thousand years seem to have two things in common: they live in very rugged and harsh environments – this allows them to grow slowly, escape humans, and competition from flora and fauna; and they have the unique ability to section of parts of their structures as they die off, keeping the rest alive and even continuing to grow. Most trees can do this to a degree but the grandfathers are experts. It is also how the second oldest tree in the world has survived - a Great Basin bristlecone pine named Methuselah growing high in the White Mountains of Inyo County in eastern California which is now 4,854-year-old. In Japan, the Ginkgo Biloba is also called the ‘bearer of hope’ after several Ginkgo Bilobas shot back close to the epicenter soon after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

It is absolutely breathtaking to see a Ginkgo ‘scar’ because it sheds its leaves pretty much all at once. When a hard frost arrives, the tree will finish severing every leaf and they fall to the ground in unison – a bright yellow rain of little fan shaped leaves, all at once. This is also an easily recognizable tree in the winter as an upright tree with some horizontal branching and importantly large buds and stubby spurs but no little twigs and branches.

The Ginkgo Biloba is a dioecious tree, meaning that it has separate male and female trees, where the wind will send the pollen from a male tree to a female. The female Gingko bears yellow round fruit in autumn. The fruit is notorious for its sliminess and awful smell of vomit which can be quite unbearable. However, when the fruit is harvested and soaked, the kernel is eaten roasted, salted or sweetened. The kernel is a known remedy for memory loss. That said, it is a prime example of “Botanical Sexism.” While understandable, many cities and parks refrain from planting female trees because their fruit are sticky, attract pests, and can create a mess or a foul smell. However, planting only male trees has increased the amount of pollen in the air in spring, making allergies worse in urban and developed areas.

Click here for the Gingko's location

This beauty is another oak tree (Quercus coccinea), one of the nearly 600 species. This one is the scarlet oak and one of the most popular ornamental trees of North America with its spectacular fall leaves which stay on the tree much longer than other fall leaves. The scarlet oak tolerates a wide range of soils but prefers poor sandy soil and lots of sunlight so it’s often found in higher elevations. Leaves are glossy deep green on top, paler green below, and scarlet in fall. The crown is open and rounded, providing light shade. The scarlet oak grows from 60' up to 85’ and shows a broader crown spread than the pin oak.

Oaks are wind-pollinated trees (“Anemophilous”) with male and female flowers on the same tree. But in spite of this fact they set fruit usually only when another individual of the same species exists in the vicinity and can serve as a pollen donor. This interesting collaboration also applies to nut production: the fruit of the Oak tree of course is the acorn and in “mast years” an oak tree produces far more acorns than usual and it does so in coordination with other oaks in the region. Trees undergoing mast years at the same time is an evolutionary adaptation that helps ensure the survival of the trees since the deer and squirrels can only eat so many at a time.

Entire cultures subsided–and thrived–on annual acorn harvests and the bread, cakes, grits, and other foods that can be made with processed acorns. In North America, it was one of the most nutritious food sources, carbohydrate rich, with a nutty flavor, and more ‘good fats’ than an almond. In a mast year, a single, well established oak of good size can drop between 500-2,000 pounds of acorns (according to the cook book “Acorns and EatEm”.) The processing takes anywhere from a day to several weeks as one has to gather acorns, crack and shell them, loosely chop them up, remove the tannins from them, grind them into flour (or keep them as grits) and cook them.  From start to finish, you are looking at anywhere from 1/2 a day to several weeks, depending on the quantities needed and leaching method used. For this reason, this was a seasonal community activity among indigenous people. Scarlet oak acorns in particular are also an important food source for many large songbirds, wild turkeys, grouse, squirrels, geese, and white-tailed deer.

The long-term survival of the oak family- estimated at 65 million years - can also partly be put down to the design of acorns. The hard shell protects the seed (or to be correct, the fruit) and while there are around 600 species of oak worldwide, an alarming 78 species of oak are now classified as in danger of extinction. Sadly, this number is rising.

The leaves of the Scarlet Oak have a bit more of ragged look than most other oaks: they’re roughly elliptical in shape, with several angular lobes that show several edges (as opposed the the pin oak which only has one pointed edge at the tip if its lobes) the sinuses are deep as in the pin oak. The acorns are relatively small and up to halfway hidden in a robust cup.

Click here for the Scarlett Oak's location

This tall beauty is a native of Mexico, Texas, and the Mississippi River valley where it likes the damp soils. The pecan is a species of hickory cultivated for its seed a.k.a. delicious nut a.k.a. drupe and of great commercial value both for its nuts and its wood. Its Latin name, Carya illionoinensis, literally means Illinois nut and it’s part of the Juglandaceae family together with the walnut, pig nut, and hickory nut.

The Pecan tree is closely intertwined with American History: Indigenous used the nuts for barter and as a nutritious food, full of proteins for many centuries. These nuts also are kept for over a year at times, without spoiling, which was helpful because the tree doesn’t fruit each year. The Pecan tree easily lives more than 300 years. On that note, Thomas Jefferson took a bag of pecan nuts from his orchard in Monticello and gave them to George Washington who successfully planted them at his home in Mount Vernon in 1775. Some of the pecans, planted  at Mount Vernon, still survive. This tree is also the State tree of Texas and the town of San Saba claims to be the pecan capital. Several southern towns have pecan festivals in the fall.

Everyone loves pecan nuts including wild turkeys, wood ducks, crows, blue jays, squirrels, opossum, and raccoons. White-tailed deer sometimes also browse pecan trees if they can reach the nuts.

Click here for the Pecan's location

The horse chestnut, is a cousin of the maple, soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae but qualifies as an Aesculus, same as the Buckeye. It is a large, deciduous, synecious tree, meaning it has both the female and male ‘organs’ together on the same branch. It is also called European horse chestnut, buckeye, and Conker tree. It is most recognizable by its upright pyramids of tiny flowers: there are red horse chestnuts most typical to Germany, and the European (native to Greece and Albania) and Japanese Horse Chestnuts typically have white flowers.

In Europe, the Conker tree is one of the favorites for children as this is where they get the chestnuts for the conker game and in preschool and elementary school, all kids learn to create little animals and funny figurines using only conkers and toothpicks. This is also called the Anne Frank tree as she talked about a horse chestnut outside her window in Amsterdam in the “Diaries of Anne Frank.”  While that tree blew over in a storm, seeds of the same tree have been distributed and grown around holocaust memorials, parks, and schools.

Horse chestnuts are poisonous. If eaten, they can cause digestive problems such as abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and throat irritation. More than one in 10 cases of poisonous plants being mistaken for edible plants involve horse and sweet chestnuts, so do make sure you identify your trees correctly. Nevertheless, deer and other mammals eat the conkers and the horse chestnut seed extract is sold in most pharmacies and helps with joint pain, bladder and gastrointestinal problems, fever, leg cramps, and other conditions. The flowers provide a rich source of nectar and pollen for insects, particularly bees. Caterpillars of the triangle moth feed on its leaves, as does the horse chestnut leaf-miner moth whose caterpillars provide food for chickadees.

An old wives tale says that if a spider gets close to a conker it will curl its legs up and die within one day – so a plus for anyone with arachnophobia.

Click here for the Horse Chestnut's location

Before it was associated with the Christmas season, the holly tree was associated with special power by the Druids (Have you read “Asterix and Obelix”?) who regarded it as a symbol of fertility and eternal life. Cutting down a holly tree was bad luck. Romans associated it with Saturn and holly adorned the feast of Saturnalia in December. Nowadays the holly tree is often associated with Christmas since it is both an ornamental and an evergreen with showy red fruit right around that time of year. If you want that kiss under the mistletoe to be effective, make it happen under mistletoe, not holly. Holly and mistletoe continue to be confused, with images of holly being used more often than you might expect to illustrate or depict mistletoe across a wide variety of media and products

This is an understory tree often found at a forest edge (early succession) which also makes a great hedge. The holly can become over 500 years old and its wood is the whitest of woods and very dense- it has been used to make bowls, chessmen and decorative inlaid work. Its bark is steel gray throughout its life. It can be dyed black making it similar to ebony.

Its berries are poisonous to some animals and cause vomiting, diarrhea, and stupor in animals if ingested in large amounts. That said, deer, rabbits and rodents eat the berries and up to 18 species of bird depend on the holly berry in winter, including grouse, quail, robin, northern cardinal, eastern bluebird, northern mockingbird, wild turkey, and northern bobwhite. The foliage of the American holly also provides cover for songbirds and mammals and the flowers are attractive to bees.

Click here for the American Holly's location

The Red Oak (Quercus rubra) is ubiquitous from Nova Scotia down to Georgia and especially present in New England where its spectacular russet to bright red fall colors are emblematic. Its leaves are similar to the scarlet oak but the sinuses are not as deep and the leaf itself is waxy but not glossy. The crown of the red oak spreads broadly – more so than the scarlet oak and definitely more than a pin oak; the nut is a longish fruit seated in a shallow cup. It tolerates pollution and loamy soils and can grow up to two feet per year in its first decade, making it a favorite for landscapers. On top, it’s a rare oak relatively amenable to being transplanted. Its pale yellow-green catkins appear at about the same time new foliage is expanding, typically between April-May.

The northern red oak has been a favorite of both lumbermen and landscapers since colonial times when it started becoming popular in Europe. It is believed that Bishop Compton's garden, near Fulham in England, received the first red oak transplant abroad in the late 17th century and by 1924, there were over 450 acres of red oak plantations in Baden, Germany.

The red oak is often associated with absolute love. It is probably because of its vivid red color in autumns and its ever-shining appearance.

Among Native Americans, the Oak also was revered for its generosity and every part of it was used when given permission by the oak itself (USDA, 2007 Indigenous Uses of Oaks):

• Leaves were used for tinder, earth oven lining, and fodder for stock.

• Galls were used for basketry, hair dyes, medicines, tattoo, and staining (i.e. ink).

• Fruits (acorns) were used for bait, toys, games, foods, medicines, jewelry, and musical instruments.

• Branches were used for bullroarers, weapons, firewood, awls, fish hooks, hide scrapers, needles, netting shuttles, and spears.

• Burls were used for bowls, cups, dippers, ladles, and mortars.

• Fungi are still used for foods and medicines.

• Sprouts were used for basketry, digging sticks, arrows, boats, rod armor, traps, fire drills, cooking tongs, stirring sticks, clothing, and games.

• Bark was used for hide tanning, medicines, and basketry dyes.

• And the trunk was used for drums, structures, medicines, and firewood.

Click here for the Red Oak's location

Flowering dogwoods are some of the most beautiful small and medium sized trees in North America and have been widely cultivated to about 50-60 different species. The dogwood has very hard wood which may have contributed to its name: many say the original name is dagger-wood, as handles of many knives are made of this tree, as are weaver's shuttles, chisel and maul handles, golf club heads, and yokes. Native Americans made medicinal teas from the bark of dogwoods and used this tea as a quinine substitute.

The dogwood does some heavy lifting for the Christian faith which has claimed it for several reasons: it blooms around Easter, its branches are opposite branching (together with Maple, Ash, and Buckeye “MAD DOG”) making it look like little crosses; and its flowers symbolize purity and innocence and represent the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The “flowers” of the flowering dogwood and kousa dogwood are not actually flowers, however, but bracts, which are modified leaves that look like petals because they have a different color. The true flowers are clustered in the center of these bracts. The bracts may be white, pink, or yellow. Dogwoods have a lot of wildlife value: its seed, fruit, flowers, twigs, bark and leaves are all used as food by various animals. At least 36 species of birds—including ruffed grouse, bobwhite, quail, and wild turkey eat the fruit as do chipmunks, foxes, squirrels, skunks, rabbits, deer, beaver, black bear, and other mammals. Its foliage and twigs are also browsed heavily by deer and rabbits.

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This gorgeous evergreen flowering tree is named after its enormous, beautiful, and fragrant blooms: Magnolia Grandiflora. The family of “Magnolia” was so named by the Swedish botanist Carl Linneaus in 1737 in honor of the French botanist Pierre Magnol (1638-1715). This particular species is also called Bull Bay, probably after the Bay in North Carolina although there’s one of the same name in Jamaica and one in Wales.

Magnolias are one of the most primitive plants in evolutionary history. Fossil records show that magnolias existed in Europe, North America, and Asia over 100 million years ago, but today they are indigenous only in Southern China and the Southern United States. There are about 80 species of magnolia of which roughly half are tropical. 

While it is a cousin of the tulip tree, it is much smaller in stature, growing less than 80 feet tall. Its glossy dark green leaves have a brownish color underneath, add to that its huge white blooms, it is a tree of beautiful contrast. Many wreaths and Christmas decorations take advantage of the longevity- even after cutting – of this contrasting foliage. The Grandiflora has huge fragrant white flowers of up to 8-12” diameter, usually with six petals, blooming in late spring, with sparse continued flowering throughout the summer. The flowers give way to spherical cone-like fruiting clusters (to 3-5” long) that mature in late summer to early fall, releasing individual rose-red coated seeds suspended on slender threads at maturity. These fruit look impressive and are also edible – they’re usually a little too tart for eating fresh, but it can be used for unique preserves, relishes, and sauces.

This showy evergreen also provides shelter and food for many animals, including native birds (doves, woodpeckers, quails, wild turkeys) and small mammals. Appropriate for this Southern Beauty, it is the state tree for Mississippi and featured on the newly revised flag since 2021.

The County Champion Magnolia Grandiflora is growing right in front of the Church Tree Garage – this is actually quite nice because it hides the ugly garage but especially because one can see and smell the magnificent flowers relatively close up when climbing the stairs.

Click here for the Southern Magnolia's location