(American Hornbeam)

A slow-growing, spreading-canopied deciduous tree, American hornbeam is native to southeastern North America and subspecies virginiana has a more northerly natural range. The ridged, gray, smooth bark looks like there are flexed muscles under it, yielding another common name of musclewood. It may also grow with many trunks and attain a form much more shrub-like, albeit large.

The pretty, oblong, tapered leaves have depressed veins and double-teeth on their edges. These leaves are slightly...

(Heartleaf Hornbeam)

(Korean Hornbeam)

(Japanese Hornbeam)

(Yeddo Hornbeam)

(Caraway)

The aromatic, strong-tasting seeds of caraway are best known as a flavor in rye bread. This Eurasian herb is a hardy biennial. The aromatic oils in its seeds have a warm, earthy, almost anise-like flavor. If not harvested, the abundant seeds fall to the ground causing new plants to spring forth the following season. Caraway seeds are most popular in northern and eastern European and Russian cooking.

Clumps of feathery foliage are produced by caraway plants in the spring and summer of the first...

(Papershell Pecan, Pecan)

Though primarily known for its sweet pecans, this large deciduous tree from eastern and southern North America and Mexico also has ornamental virtues. It is a tall, beautiful tree with attractive compound leaves, a tall straight trunk and furrowed, gray-brown to brown-black bark. Many cultivars have been selected for flavor, hardiness, earliness of ripening, and other characteristics.

Trees generally take from 15 to 20-years before they are fruit-bearing. Harvest takes place very late in the...

(Burkett Pecan, Papershell Pecan)

Though primarily known for its sweet pecans, this large deciduous tree also has ornamental virtues such as attractive compound leaves and a straight, furrowed, gray-brown to brown-black trunk. A 1911 introduction that was once common in cultivation, 'Burkett' is now largely superseded by later cultivars such as its offspring 'Apache' and 'Comanche'.

Trees generally take from 15 to 20-years before they are fruit-bearing. Harvest takes place very late in the fall season, and the larger the tree...

(Candy Pecan, Papershell Pecan)

Though primarily known for its sweet pecans, this large deciduous tree also has ornamental virtues such as attractive compound leaves and a straight, furrowed, gray-brown to brown-black trunk. The cultivar 'Candy' is an old (introduced 1913) and relatively disease-resistant cultivar that bears prolific crops of relatively small nuts at an early age. Its lush, attractive leaves are darker and earlier than those of most other cultivars, making it one of the most ornamentally desirable pecans. It does...

(Cape Fear Pecan, Papershell Pecan)

Though primarily known for its sweet pecans, this large deciduous tree also has ornamental virtues such as attractive compound leaves and a straight, furrowed, gray-brown to brown-black trunk. The cultivar 'Cape Fear' bears prolific crops of pecans at an early age, but produces less heavily and becomes increasingly subject to bacterial leaf scorch as it ages. It performs best in the south central and southeast United States.

Harvest generally takes place very late in the fall season; the larger...