Trees in the Thornhill Area

Indiana produces some of the finest hardwoods in the world, including walnut, maple, red oak, white oak, cherry, and tulip poplar.  The state has over 400 sawmills producing about 178 million board feet of lumber and other wood products annually!   One moderate sized tree has as much cooling effect in a city as 20 average room air conditioners running 20 hours per day!  One mature, thrifty tree, in one growing season, will provide enough oxygen to keep one man breathing for one year!

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Black Walnut
		The Black Walnut has compound leaves, dark brown to black bark with deep furrowed ridges, and a 1 1/2-2" diameter nut with a thick yellowish green husk.   It is one of the most highly valued of North American hardwoods.  The fruit is eaten by many animals as well as man.
Shagbark Hickory
		The Shagbark Hickory has compound leaves with 5-7 hairless leaflets.   The Hickory has light-colored and shaggy bark and egg-shaped nuts.  The shagbark hickory is a slow growing tree that can produce up to 2-3 bushels of nuts annually.  Hickories are important food sources for wildlife.
White Ash
		The White Ash has compound leaves with 5-9 oblong leaflets and ashy gray bark.  This is our most valuable and largest native ash.  It provides durable timber for furniture, tool handles, oars, musical instruments, baseball bats, and skis.
Black Locust
		The Black Locust has compound leaves with 6-20 egg-shaped leaflets, dark, deeply ridged bark with short thorns on its branches, and produces long flat pods with 4-8 seeds in each one.  This tree was once planted extensively for erosion control and harvested to make railroad ties and fence posts.   Because the wood swells or contracts very little with changes in moisture it was used as "tree nails" in wooden ship construction.
Sycamore
		The Sycamore has large simple leaves with 3-7 lobes.  Its bark is mottled with white, green, and brown and its fruit becomes fuzzy when pulled apart.   The sycamore is commonly found along stream banks and in bottomlands.  It is used mostly for wood pulp.
Red Oak
		The Red Oak has hairless, thin and dull leaves that are  lobed with sharp edges.  The bark is dark and furrowed.  The Red Oak produces acorns.   It is widely used as an ornamental because of its ease in transplanting, the fall color of the leaves, and the nice form of the tree.  It also provides food for wildlife.
White Oak
		The White Oak has evenly lobed, hairless leaves, a whitish bark and and produces an acorn.  The white oak produces many nuts, but not regularly, and many years may pass without any crop.  Many squirrels help distribute the seeds throughout the forest.  It is slow growing and can live 400-500 years.
Black Cherry
		The Black Cherry tree has long, narrow, dark green, shiny leaves that have sharp teeth along the outer edges. The bark of young trees is smooth and brown to black and older trees have black, scaly bark.  The Black Cherry produces a dark purple fruit that occurs in long clusters from June to October.  As one of the largest cherries, it is of value for lumber and as food for wildlife.  The dark wood is used for furniture.  The berries can be made into jelly but the leaves and seeds contain a strong acid.
Red Elm
		The Red Elm (Slippery Elm) has elliptical leaves that have a rough topside and a hairy underside.  The bark of the red elm  is reddish brown with scaly ridges and the seed is round surrounded by wings.  The common name, slippery elm, comes from the slimy inner bark.  It was used to quench thirst, sooth sore throats, and was known as a scurvy preventive.  The American Indians used the wood for tomahawk handles.
American Beech
		The American Beech has papery thin, egg-shaped leaves with coarse-toothed edges, smooth and gray bark and an edible nut that is triangular shaped with weak spines.   The name "beech" has a very ancient origin and means "book."   The early writings of the Germanic peoples were inscribed upon tablets of this wood.  The quality of the wood is fair.  The fruits are eaten by many types of wildlife including turkey, raccoon, deer, fox, rabbit, squirrels, and opossum.
Cotton Wood
		The Cottonwood tree has a coarse-toothed, triangular shaped leaf, dark and deeply ridged bark when mature, and oval shaped fruit that hangs in clusters.  The cottonwood is a medium-sized to large tree, 80-100 feet high and 3-4 feet in diameter.   It thrives in wet areas. Like other poplars, cottonwood produces large numbers of silky-haired seeds which travel by air or by water for many miles.
Black Willow
	'No Photo'	The Black Willow tree has long, narrow, hairless leaves with fine teeth, bark that is dark and has deep fissures and scaly ridges and a fruit that occurs in droopy clusters.  Black willow is a small to medium-sized tree 30-60 feet high and about 14" in diameter.  It is found on moist or wet soils along the banks of streams and lakes.
Sugar Maple
		The Sugar Maple has leaves that are 5-lobed with deep notches between lobes and pale green on the underside.  The bark is dark brown marked with rough vertical grooves and ridges.  The fruit is a double winged seed.  Besides its importance as a timber producer, the sugar maple is used as an ornamental, as a source of food, and yields valuable syrup and sugar.
White Pine
		The White Pine has dark bluish-green needles, the bark is not scaly, but dark with deep furrows.  The cones are 3-10" long, slender and tapering at the end and contain the seeds.  White pine is one of the most important and tallest timber trees in the Northeast.  The wood is light, soft, straight-grained, and is of great value for house construction. It is used for reforestation projects since it grows rapidly.
Tulip Tree
		The Tulip Tree has simple leaves with 4 lobes that are smooth and shiny.   The bark is dark green and smooth in young trees and as the tree matures the bark breaks into rough ridges separated by gray fissures.  The fruit is conelike containing a winged seed.  The tulip tree is also a valuable timber producer.   It can attain heights of 200 feet and a diameter of 12 feet.  Tulip trees grow quickly and very straight.  They were used by pioneers to make log cabins.
This checklist was derived from "Common Trees of the Upper Wabash Reservoirs " published by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and available at the Salamonie Lake Interpretive Center. Contact naturalist Marvin McNew (HC 1989). Unless otherwise indicated, all images on this page were obtained from ClipArt.com © 2003. Permission to reproduce these images must be obtained from www.clipart.com.