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Tilia
Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere, in Asia (where the greatest species diversity is found), Europe and eastern North America; it is not native to western North America. Under the Cronquist classification system, this genus was placed in the family Tiliaceae, but genetic research by the APG has resulted in the incorporation of this family into the Malvaceae. They are generally called lime in Britain and linden or basswood in North America.
Tilia species are large deciduous trees, reaching typically 20 to 40 metres (70 to 100 ft) tall, with oblique-cordate leaves 6 to 20 centimetres (2 to 8 in) across, and are found through the north temperate regions. The exact number of species is subject to considerable uncertainty, as many or most of the species will hybridise readily, both in the wild and in cultivation.
The Tilia’s sturdy trunk stands like a pillar and the branches divide and subdivide into numerous ramifications on which the twigs are fine and thick. In summer these are profusely clothed with large leaves and the result is a dense head of abundant foliage.
The leaves of all the Tilias are heart-shaped and most are asymmetrical, and the tiny fruit, looking like peas, always hang attached to a curious, ribbon-like, greenish yellow bract, whose use seems to be to launch the ripened seed-clusters just a little beyond the parent tree. The flowers of the European and American Tilias are similar, except that the American bears a petal-like scale among its stamens and the European varieties are destitute of these appendages. All of the Tilias may be propagated by cuttings and grafting as well as by seed. They grow rapidly in a rich soil, but are subject to the attack of many insects.
In Europe, Tilia trees are known to have reached ages measured in centuries, if not longer. A coppice of T. cordata in Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire, for example, is estimated to be 2,000 years old. In the courtyard of the Imperial Castle at Nuremberg is a Tilia which tradition says was planted by the Empress Cunigunde, the wife of Henry II of Germany. This would make the tree about nine hundred years old (as of 1900 when it was described). It looks ancient and infirm, but in 1900 was sending forth a few leaves on its two or three remaining branches and was, of course, cared for tenderly. The Tilia of Neuenstadt am Kocher in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, was computed to be one thousand years old when it fell.[ The Alte Linde tree of Naters, Switzerland, is mentioned in a document in 1357 and described by the writer at that time as already “magnam” (huge). A plaque at its foot mentions that in 1155 a Tilia tree was already on this spot.
* The excellence of the honey of far-famed Hybla was due to the Tilia trees that covered its sides and crowned its summit.
* The name of Linnaeus, the great botanist, was derived from a Tilia tree.
* Tilia appears in the tertiary formations of Grinnell Land, Canada, at 82° north latitude, and in Spitsbergen, Norway. Sapporta believed that he found there the common ancestor of the Tilias of Europe and America.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basswood
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Tetradium
Tetradium is a genus of nine species of trees in the family Rutaceae, occurring in temperate to tropical east Asia. In older books, the genus was often included in the related genus Euodia (orthographic error, “Evodia”), but that genus is now restricted to tropical species . In cultivation in English-speaking countries, they are known as Euodia, Evodia, or Bee bee tree.
They are attractive trees with deciduous glossy pinnate leaves. Tetradium daniellii (syn. T. hupehensis) develops a smooth gray bark that resembles that of a beech tree and grows to a height of 20 metres. The leaves resemble the foliage of an ash tree and are a glossy dark green in summer. In fall there is little color change and leaves tend to drop green to yellow-green. The tree is covered in late July and August with masses of large flat white to gray cluster of small white flowers, particularly valued when few other tree-size plants are flowering. It attracts large numbers of bees and is sought after by beekeepers as a source of late summer honey. The flowers produce clusters of seed that is present from late August through November. The seeds start as bright red capsules that when fully ripe open to expose shiny black buckshot seed as Autumn progresses. The small, red-to-black berries are popular with many birds.
Tetradium species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Aenetus scotti and Endoclita damor.
The genus is also closely related to Melicope and is sometimes included within it. Melicope elleryana is sometimes referred to as Evodia, or Euodia.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetradium
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Sumac
Sumac (pronounced /ˈʃuːmæk/ or /ˈs(j)uːmæk/; also spelled sumach) is any one of approximately 250 species of flowering plants in the genus Rhus and related genera, in the family Anacardiaceae. Sumacs grow in subtropical and temperate regions throughout the world, especially in Africa and North America.
Sumacs are shrubs and small trees that can reach a height of 1–10 metres (3.3–33 ft). The leaves are spirally arranged; they are usually pinnately compound, though some species have trifoliate or simple leaves. The flowers are in dense panicles or spikes 5–30 centimetres (2.0–12 in) long, each flower very small, greenish, creamy white or red, with five petals. The fruits form dense clusters of reddish drupes called sumac bobs. The dried drupes of some species are ground to produce a tangy purple spice.
Sumacs propagate both by seed (spread by birds and other animals through their droppings), and by new shoots from rhizomes, forming large clonal colonies.
The word sumac has its etymology in medieval Arabic apothecaries, while the word rhus has etymology in ancient Greek.
Cultivation and uses
The drupes of the genus Rhus are ground into a deep-red or purple powder used as a spice in Middle Eastern cuisine to add a lemony taste to salads or meat.[5] In Arab cuisine, it is used as a garnish on meze dishes such as hummus and is added on salads in the Levant. In Iranian (Persian and Kurdish) cuisine, sumac is added to rice or kebab. In Turkish cuisine, for example, it is added to salad-servings of kebabs and lahmacun.
In North America, the Smooth Sumac (Rhus glabra) and the Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina) are sometimes used to make a beverage termed “sumac-ade,” “Indian lemonade” or “rhus juice”. This drink is made by soaking the drupes in cool water, rubbing them to extract the essence, straining the liquid through a cotton cloth and sweetening it. Native Americans also used the leaves and drupes of the Smooth and Staghorn Sumacs combined with tobacco in traditional smoking mixtures.
Species including the Fragrant Sumac (Rhus aromatica), the Littleleaf Sumac (R. microphylla), the Skunkbush Sumac (R. trilobata), the Smooth Sumac and the Staghorn Sumac are grown for ornament, either as the wild types or as cultivars.
The leaves of certain sumacs yield tannin (mostly pyrogallol), a substance used in vegetable tanning. Leather tanned with sumac is flexible, light in weight, and light in color, even bordering on being white.
Dried sumac wood fluoresces under long-wave ultraviolet radiation, commonly known as black light.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumac
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