After days of rain, the trees and blooms in the WashU Arboretum are showing off! If you’re on campus this week, here’s what you may see…
Serviceberries
Serviceberries are in bloom all over campus, with five delicate strap-shaped petals on each flower and graceful, leaning trunks. Some of the best displays of gathered serviceberries are on the McLeod Walk and steps down to Bear’s Den in the South 40. WashU’s Arbor Walk tree, the Downy Serviceberry, can be found in the Butterfly Garden. These trees also produce sensationally tasty berries in June that are coveted by birds.
Plums/cherries
Plums and cherries derive from the same genus, Prunus, and can often interbreed, making them hard to distinguish without careful examination. However, they both produce gorgeous, showy white flowers.
The Arbor Walk specimen, Chokecherry, will be blooming soon, but Prunus species are flowering outside the Gaylord Music library and elsewhere on campus.
Dogwoods
The state tree of Missouri, the Flowering Dogwood, is beginning to bloom. These trees have large four-bracted inflorescences with very small flowers. As a native plant, dogwoods are an excellent choice to use in landscaping in St. Louis.
On campus, these trees are best viewed across from Student Technology Services on the South 40.
Shrubs
Numerous ornamental shrubs are blooming across campus. On the South 40, find the white Pearlbush in the featured image of this post along Wallace Drive and a beautiful yellow Forsythia next to Shepley House.
Oaks
While the flowers of oaks may not be particularly beautiful or recognizable, they are extremely important and efficient at their jobs. Long, thin green catkins hang from the branches of male oak trees and release pollen that is windblown to tiny green flowers on female oak trees, and if fertilized, they will grow into acorns.
WashU has over 25 species of species of oak on campus, which will flower at different times throughout the spring, like this Willow Oak.
Carolina Silverbell
This tree is an uncommon species in the WashU Arboretum, as it is most commonly found in the Southern Appalachians. Its four wide, overlapping white petals will form a four-sided nutlet if fertilized, which are often eaten by squirrels in its native range.
WashU’s two Carolina Silverbells can be found in the courtyard of Rudolph Hall.