Like so much of the rest of North America, Missouri faced a late-season freeze after a mild February and March. Many of the trees brought out their flowers and leaves early, and it turned out to be too early.
The frost-blighted leaves above are still hanging from a pignut hickory tree in the western end of Roundrock. There were examples like this all around. Blighted by the unexpected cold, these overachievers paid a price. (I have a couple of trees in my suburban yard -- a gingko and a river birch -- that took a hard hit. They are only now starting to bring out some tentative leaves again.)
I'm told that this late freeze means a reduction in the acorn and nut crop this fall, but I'm not sure I believe that. Don't acorns take a few years to develop, at least on most oaks? Well, we'll see what happens.
Here is another scene nearby. This is also a pignut hickory, and these leaflets look happy and healthy, soaking up the sunshine on that warm April day when we were there. A native tree in its native ground will cope. I can still take cheer from it though.
Missouri calendar:
- Blackberry winter; a cold spell may occur, freezing blackberry blooms.
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May 11th, 2007 at 6:11 am
Interesting about your river birches – ours had no trouble at all. I suspect that there may have been a window of vulnerability for leaves.
From cloudy memory, species in the red oak group take two years to mature acorns, white oaks, one year. (Confirmed at this site.) And the timing of flowering is different too. Depending on the timing of the cold, if the flowers were damaged while flowering, red oak group may not produce acorns in 2008, while white oaks may not in 2007.
Last year we saw virtually no acorns at all here, and we have large numbers of trees in both groups.
Hickories and walnuts generally put out their leaves much later than oaks, perhaps that’s why the hickories look good at Roundrock. Why they failed in town – maybe urban heat?