Americanized Tree of Heaven Gardens Tow the Line With White Ash

Summary: Americanized tree of heaven gardens brave barren, compacted, disturbed, salty soils even though they batter all plants but white ash with allelopathy.

roadside tree of heaven: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images

Americanized tree of heaven gardens adapt to undesirable light, moisture, nutrient and soil conditions but assail area vegetation with allelopathic chemicals and local communities with rambunctious resprouts, repulsive scents and riotous seeds.

The perennial member in the Simaroubaceae family of quassia-related shrubs and trees bears weed designations in the United States in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont. The woody native of China celebrates 233 years of cultivation and naturalization in North America, commencing with configuration as city street-lining trees in Pennsylvania in 1784. Pungent scents distinguish the deciduous non-native's crushed foliage from that of native American mountain-ash, bitternut hickory, black locust, black walnut, butternut, poison sumac and staghorn sumac.

Successful treatment schedules emphasize eradication by controlled burns, extreme pruning and herbicidal chemicals even though white ash emerges triumphant in niche competitions with tree of heaven.

Tree of heaven, commonly called Chinese sumac, copal tree, paradise tree, stinking sumac and varnish tree, favors round to oval embryonic leaves called cotyledons for seedlings.

Fifty-year life expectancies give mature, 98.42-foot (30-meter) heights from 3.28- to 4.92-foot (1- to 1.5-meter) yearly growth rates and from established taproots three months after germination. The branches and the trunk have gray, smooth bark while the fine-haired twigs hint of light brown in salt-tolerant, shade-intolerant, sun-loving Americanized tree of heaven gardens. The alternate, compound, dark green, 11.81- to 39.37-inch- (30- to 100-centimeter-) long foliage includes 11 to 41 gland-bearing, hairy, lance-shaped leaflets with one- or two-toothed bases.

Conspicuous, triangular leaf scars jam stem surfaces from the autumn-yellowed, ground-scattered, 2.99- to 4.72-inch- (7.6- to 12-centimeter-) long, 0.98- to 1.97-inch- (2.5- to 5-centimeter-) wide leaflets.

Hundreds of branching, pyramid-shaped, 3.94- to 7.87-inch- (10- to 20-centimeter-) long inflorescences called panicles keep three to four times less flowers on female trees than male.

Green-yellow, 0.24- to 0.32-inch- (6- to 8-millimeter-) long flowers let off smells and line up six to 16 stamens if male and, if female, one pistil. Five to six sepals mingle with five to six 0.06- to 0.09-inch- (1.5- to 2.5-millimeter-) long petals on all flowers in Americanized tree of heaven gardens. Yellow-green to red-brown fruits called schizocarps nudge forth two to five 1.18- to 1.97-inch- (3- to 5-centimeter-) long, 0.28- to 0.51-inch-(7- to 13-millimeter-) wide mericarps.

Altogether the samara-like, single-seeded, twisted, wind-dispersed, winged mericarps fruiting in clusters 11.81 inches (30 centimeters) across offer 350,000 seeds per year in 12- to 20-year-old trees.

The brown, elliptical, flattened, 0.18- to 0.28-inch- (4.5- to 7-millimeter-) long seeds proceed from dispersal to dormancy, exposure to cold and germination in under one year.

Tree of heaven quits being cold hardy in temperatures below minus 31 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 35 degrees Celsius) and being viable in soil within one year. It also reproduces, at 9.84- to 13.12-foot (3- to 4-meter) growth rates per year, by resprouts 49.21 feet (15 meters) from, and by suckers on, stems. Its survivalist one-year-old seedlings and two-year-old resprouts, whose rope-thick roots snatch soil moisture and nutrients, sometimes set March- to July-blooming flowers 10 years ahead of schedule.

Tree of heaven, scientifically called Ailanthus altissima (tallest tree of heaven), tolerates few space-share arrangements, other than with white ash, in Americanized tree of heaven gardens.

Ailanthus altissima's survivalist capabilities sometimes advance flower blooming schedule by 10 years; tree of heaven staminate inflorescence: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

roadside tree of heaven: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images @ http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=2308054

Ailanthus altissima's survivalist capabilities sometimes advance flower blooming schedule by 10 years; tree of heaven staminate inflorescence: Leslie J. Mehrhoff, University of Connecticut, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0, via Forestry Images @ http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5269087

For further information:

"Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/29400088

Danin, Prof. Avinoam. "Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle." Flora of Israel Online > Flora.
Available @ http://flora.org.il/en/plants/AILALT/

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

Marriner, Derdriu. 21 April 2014. "Ailanthus altissima: Tree of Heavenly Blessings or Curses." Wizzley > Plants & Gardening > Gardening > Trees.
Available @ https://wizzley.com/ailanthus-altissima-tree-of-heavenly-blessings-or-curses/

Marriner, Derdriu. 3 October 2015. "Ailanthus Webworm Moths: Beneficial Insects and Garden Gate Icons." Earth and Space News. Saturday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/10/ailanthus-webworm-moths-beneficial.html

Miller, Phillip. MD.CC.LVXIII (1768). "10. Toxicodendron (altissimum)." The Gardeners Dictionary. Eighth edition. London UK: John and Francis Rivington.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/395642

Swingle, Walter T. (Tennyson). 1916. "The Early European History and the Botanical Name of the Tree of Heaven, Ailanthus altissima." Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, vol. 6 (14): 490-498.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/2006091

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT (Botanical Research Institute of Texas) Press.