By Ken Moore
Flora columnist

Flora has annually eulogized the university’s 200-plus-year-old “Polk Place Persimmon.” Now, during what I lament may be its final year on that sacred ground, I’ve asked gardening friend and persimmon tree devotee Bill Bracey to take up the pen this time around.

Bill and I enjoy weekly evening sit-downs beneath his 100-plus-year-old persimmon tree. Never a week goes by that we don’t comment on our old friend, the Polk Place Persimmon.

And never a week goes by that I don’t express my admiration to Bill for having read all seven volumes of Marcel Proust, the master of the long sentence. I challenged Bill to honor the Polk Place Persimmon with a description as if composed by Proust himself. I tip my hat to Bill for having met that challenge, and am joyous to share with Flora readers this year’s annual eulogy to our ancient old tree friend by Bill Bracey.

“The common persimmon, Diospyros (fire, or fruit, of the gods), this tree had a good PR team, or perhaps the taxonomist was thinking of Bill Smith’s persimmon pudding, virginiana, is an outlier of the generally tropical ebony family, gracing the margins of our woodlands and standing sentry in fields and pastures, left there by farmers who valued the fruit provided at no cost and minimal labor other than that to collect it, and locally best exemplified by a remnant of the original campus forest, the magnificent dying specimen on Polk Place, delightfully defying the bland martial symmetry of the willow and white oaks that line the east and west perimeters of that southern quad of the UNC campus, but condemned by its location in a desert of bricks and mortar and the wide green lawns that are the polyester of landscapes (although I do appreciate their utility for outdoor spring classes and Ultimate Frisbee games) to a life of frustrating celibacy, as the dioecious persimmon takes two to, you know, and this beautiful male with the characteristic awkward branching habit (which gave its kind a darker utility as a hanging tree) under which one spring not long ago I stood for one oneiric hour, captivated by the faintly audible rain of white bell-shaped flowers in a waning show of potential fecundity before any visible signs of the tree’s decline had registered, with branches fully leafed and distinctive deeply furrowed bark sturdy enough for a child to free-climb, this tree that lived its latter years in one hand clapping will soon leave the campus to lesser but more productive kin including the one just off the lanes Battle & Hooper, a civilly unioned female that each fall is laden with more golden-orange fruit than seems possible, which after ripening to the point of losing the astringency that defines astringency, and falling to the ground, is as sweet as any candy and a reason to steer any autumn amble beneath its branches, all the more as we are losing the patriarch of Polk Place, one of the last biological natural features that all the Carolina family have shared.

So, long live the Davie Poplar and what is left of the Noble Grove.”

Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com. Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at The Annotated Flora (carrborocitizen.com/flora).

By Ken Moore
Flora columnist

A friend visiting from the Carolina mountains inquired of some local folks about locations of spectacular wildflower displays here in the Piedmont. He was surprised by their response that the Piedmont doesn’t have any spectacular displays of wildflowers.

I didn’t have the opportunity to convince my friend otherwise because he was intent to be on his way on a two-week journey in pursuit of spectacular wildflower displays in the eastern coastal long leaf pine savannahs.

Before he left, however, I described locations of spectacular wildflowers here in our Piedmont.
For instance, there is the far-as-the-eye-can-see display of Dutchman’s breeches on the Flat River north of Durham in mid-March; spring beauties carpet the flood plains of the Eno River and New Hope Creek from late February through mid-April; and some of the fields at Mason Farm Biological Reserve are a sea of tall white-flowering Penstemons in mid-May. In late summer and early fall those same fields have spectacular displays of other wildflowers. Depending on the season, we have lots of spectacular wildflower areas here in the Piedmont!

I wanted to show my friend the spectacular mountain laurels,Kalmia latifolia, on Occoneechee Mountain near Hillsborough, but he was not interested in a plant so common around his home turf.

However, you local folks should welcome this spectacular mountain laurel display such a short drive away. The Occoneechee mountain laurel is usually at peak on Mother’s Day, but it’s early this year; now’s the time to visit.

The 2.2-mile Occoneechee Mountain loop trail begins at the western edge of the parking area and leisurely meanders around the western slope of the mountain, dominated by mature rock chestnut oaks, Quercus montana.

Along that path you’ll find flowering patches of fetterbush, Lyonia mariana, and deerberry, Vaccinium stamineum. If you’re observant you may spot a lone mountain laurel in the forest below you. That lone flowering specimen stands like a sentinel ahead of the endless thicket of mountain laurel you will find as you continue around to the north slopes.

You’ll find yourself dwarfed beneath a canopy of flowering laurel, and in places you’ll be surprised to see evergreen round leaves of galax, Galax aphylla, covering the ground beneath the laurel. You will feel like you are in the Carolina mountains. We’re fortunate to have a few locations like Occoneechee where small relict mountain-plant communities continue to survive on cool north river slopes following the last southern glacial period.

Pause for a while and take a closer look at some of those round, bowl-shaped laurel flowers. In some, the 10 dark, burgundy-red stamens are embedded in the petal surface. In older flowers, you will discover that the stamens are in an inverted curved position, having sprung upward when ripe, tossing pollen onto unsuspecting insect pollinators. If you’re clever, you may be able to get some of those embedded stamens to perform for you.

Make haste to get out this week if you want to enjoy this particular spectacular Piedmont wildflower display!

Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com. Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at The Annotated Flora (carrborocitizen.com/flora).

By Ken Moore
Flora columnist

Legendary English gardener and writer Vita Sackville-West described spiderwort as “… a plant I like very much, sometimes called the Trinity Flower, owing to its three petals of a rich violet, curiously lurking amongst the grassy leaves.”

I love the notion of flowers “curiously lurking amongst the grassy leaves” because that’s exactly how I find them scattered about in my garden. I don’t remember planting one when I used to try being organized about gardening, but happily they freely self-seed, and I have them now scattered about the yard in both sunny and shady locations. Since they planted themselves I don’t have to be concerned about watering them.

When they seem to have finished flowering and flop over during the heat of the summer, I simply cut the stems back and enjoy another flush of growth and flowering later in the season.

The one moving around my yard is most likely Tradescantia ohiensis, smooth spiderwort, with leaves having a somewhat whitish cast (glaucous) to them. The leaves immediately below the flower clusters are as wide as the stem leaves.
The name Trandescantia honors two notable English gardeners, the two John Tradescants, father and son. King Charles I sent the younger John Tradescant to Virginia in 1637 to gather all rarities of flowers, plants and shells. By that date the elder John Tradescant, the king’s gardener, was already growing many American plants in his London garden. Spiderworts were one of the earliest American plants transported back to England.

Spiderwort seedlings possess an endless palette of blue and violet flowers. No two are ever quite alike, and often one finds some really special colors. A rosy-red color form is “curiously lurking amongst the grassy leaves” at the edge of my porch steps this year.

For hardcore Tar Heel fans, there are some Carolina blue color forms of spiderworts “lurking” amongst all the others in a showy bed behind the Totten Center at the N.C. Botanical Garden. That “Carolina Blue spiderwort” (my name for it) has been in that bed for several years. I hope the garden staff will someday propagate and offer for sale Tradescantia ‘Tar Heel Blue.’

Native Americans ate young spiderwort plants as greens in the spring. However, the oozy, sticky sap of a broken spiderwort stem makes such an idea unappealing to me. Root teas were considered effective for stomach ailments and root poultices were considered an effective cancer cure. I particularly like the description of spiderwort as one of the ingredients in a medicine for kidney troubles, “… requiring an accompanying prayer.” A prayer is probably a wise necessity with any herbal remedy.

Lack of medical expertise guides me in keeping my spiderworts out of the medicine cabinet and encouraging them to “curiously lurk” anywhere they may choose in my landscape.

Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com. Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at The Annotated Flora (carrborocitizen.com/flora).

By Ken Moore
Flora columnist

With three parted leaves like the traditional shamrock, the wood-sorrels are calling out to us these days from sunny and shady locations.

The most noticeable of the Oxalis species is O. rubra, which right now is making appearances in lawns about town. It’s a bright-pink flowered oxalis from Brazil that has naturalized in neighborhood yards.

We have a beautiful, shy native pink wood-sorrel, Oxalis violaceae, which you will occasionally discover while walking in local forests. Only a few flowers can be seen here and there, the real charm of this plant being the engaging clover-like leaf, which is tinged with a pale-purple coloring. I’d never seen it in the open until last week while walking the N.C. Botanical Garden’s Mason Farm Biological Reserve. There was quite a stand of it flowering profusely out in one of the recently burned fields. I could not help but think that like young children, those violet wood-sorrels had seized an opportunity to escape the nearby woodlands and frolic about in the sunny field.

Much more commonly observed about town is the small yellow-flowered Oxalis dillenii, southern yellow wood-sorrel. This is the one I remember from my childhood. I am delighted to discover it is the first plant described in the introduction of Doug Elliott’s Wildwoods Wisdom. Most likely out of print, Doug Elliott’s descriptions of nature’s creatures, including humans, are well worth finding a copy, whether from a library or purchased online as a used copy.

This yellow wood-sorrel was the first wild plant Doug put in his mouth. His dad called it sour grass, and Doug frequently visited the little patch in his yard to sample those tart little green seedpods he called “pickles.”

That’s exactly how I remember them as a youngster – sneaking around beneath the shrubbery tasting those tart little “pickles,” and my mom searching for me to warn me about eating plants in the yard. You’ll see this small upright yellow wood-sorrel everywhere – in lawns, along sidewalks and sunny woodland borders and even at entrances to coffee shops.

Sometimes you may spot a variety of yellow wood-sorrel with larger yellow flowers. I’ve seen a few of them recently, brightening shaded forest floors.

Doug shares a wonderful story about seeing wood-sorrel while walking with his Canadian friend some years ago. His friend described gathering it by the basketful as a kid for his family to mix in with other salad greens. The flavor of those “sour pickles” served as a dressing. The traditional name for it in the north country is “It’s all there,” because the top of each of the three leaflets has two lobes for a total count of six, representing the six directions of north, south, east, west, sky and earth. “It’s all there,” and it’s nice to feel the completeness of being one with nature when encountering any of the wood-sorrels.

Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com. Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at The Annotated Flora (carrborocitizen.com/flora).

By Ken Moore
Flora columnist

Cool, moist interludes during this early warm spring provide optimal conditions for a lingering presence of our wildflowers. Beginning to show up now in local forests are wild geraniums, with purple and pink flowers seeming to hover in the air above distinctive, deeply lobed leaves. The wild geranium, Geranium maculatum, is far more sophisticated, I think, than those popular brightly colored florist and bedding-plant geraniums, the Pelargonium species from much warmer climates.

This lovely wild geranium of mountain and Piedmont cove forests is sometimes called alumroot because of its described medicinal use as an astringent and septic. It should not, however, be confused with more commonly called alumroot, Heuchera americana, which has similar medicinal qualities.

Wild geranium is also more appropriately called cranesbill or storksbill. Geranium, in fact, means “crane.” The seed-bearing structure resembles a crane’s or stork’s long beak and serves a very specific function. There are five seeds at the base of the beak, and when the seeds are mature that beak splits into five segments and, one at a time, the individual seeds are catapulted up and forward as far as 30 feet away.

The seeds’ movement doesn’t stop there. Each seed has a little tail or awn that curls when dry and extends when wet, causing that little seed to continue to travel until it may eventually settle into a soil cavity with potential for germination and growth.

Jack Sanders (The Secrets of Wildflowers) poetically describes the seed’s movements in “Adventurers.”
“Geranium seeds are a traveling lot,
First they fly, fired like a shot,
Then they crawl in search of a spot,
A nook or a cranny in which to squat
And settle a new geranium plot.”

Wild geranium has a tiny weedy native cousin, Carolina cranesbill, Geranium carolinianum, which most folks will quickly extract from their gardens. I let it run rampant over my yard where my Welsh gardening friend, Sue Morgan, enjoys carefully stepping through un-mown sweeps of flowering weeds. She is particularly keen on the characteristic round, palmately dissected geranium leaves thrusting above lingering purple henbit, Lamium purpureum, and bird’s-eye speedwell, Veronica persica.

The tiny pink geranium flower often goes unnoticed, except to the keen eye of friend Sue, who is charmed by the “perfect miniature geranium flower.”

A “closer look” at this diminutive wild geranium will unveil the beauty found in red tinges of the aging leaves and the persistent sepals surrounding the five dark seeds at the base of the beak-like center.

Though friend Sue doesn’t allow such freedom to flowering weeds in her garden, she’s happy to view them in my yard.
As I always suggest, before you pull it up, take a closer look and you may find hidden beauty there.

Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com. Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at The Annotated Flora (carrborocitizen.com/flora).

By Ken Moore
Flora columnist

It is so interesting to watch the unfolding of the new landscape slowly emerging around the N.C. Botanical Garden’s new building complex. While I’ve heard comments that the new gardens are taking too long to create, I commend the Garden staff for being so thoughtful and not rushing into what will be a most engaging and instructional future garden.

Meanwhile, the old gardens surrounding the Totten Center are mature and absolutely exploding with horticultural beauty and botanical interest. The sweeps of golden ragwort and blue phlox in the shade garden are breathtaking, and watching children discovering the emerging flowers and leaves in the carnivorous plant beds is a joy to behold.

It is noteworthy that specimens showing up in the new gardens represent the diversity of plants that occur naturally all around us in the Carolina Piedmont.

Most of those plants result from the Garden’s active propagation program. Planning ahead, keen staff members carefully collected seed of dozens of local Piedmont species, and now there are lots of plants for display and testing. Some of them will become choice garden plants, some may become a future Wildflower of the Year and some few may become select cultivars. We all love those fancy-named cultivars like goldenrod, Solidago rugosa, “Fireworks,” and wild indigo, Baptisia, “Carolina Moonlight,” both special selections from the Garden.

One of my favorites is a plant rescued years ago from a residential construction site. It has proven to be a dependable, low groundcover that thrives in heat, drought, sun and shade. Common cinquefoil (meaning five fingers, referring to the five leaf segments), Potentilla simplex, serves as a well-behaved living green mulch supporting other perennials in the garden.

In The Secrets of Wildflowers by Jack Sanders, longtime Connecticut resident and newspaper editor, the author seems as enthusiastic as I am about cinquefoils. He describes cinquefoils as “a rose by another name.”

I wholeheartedly agree with him that “Cinquefoils are lowly but lovely flowers. … These dry-earth cinquefoils are nature’s way of covering, even decorating, the more barren parts of our landscape. Like cacti, they spring from harsh, barren soils. As we allow more of the good topsoil to be eroded or scraped away, the cinquefoils are bound to become even more common. They are among those opportunistic creatures of nature that thrive on our inability to handle our environment carefully.”

Enough said – go search out the several areas in the new gardens where keen curators, particularly Chris Liloia and Sally Heiney, are encouraging and planting this lowly, lovely native groundcover.

Jack Sanders is also a poet, and I have to share his poem about cinquefoils:
Mysteries
The lowly cinquefoil is a rose.
A fact that any botanist knows.
Though it seems to me a mystery
How such a lowly plant can be
Sibling to a flower that grows
As glorious as a garden rose.
The bigger question does remain:
How you pronounce that funny name?
Does it ‘sink’ or does it ‘sank’
As it wanders up the bank?
And as it creeps across the soil
What, pray tell, does it foil?
How I wish I had composed that!

Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com. Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at The Annotated Flora.

Ken Moore
Flora Columnist

Well now, I had a wonderful, easy-to-grow, native wildflower groundcover all lined up for this week’s Flora when an awful, innocent-looking plant alien pushed it aside.

It’s most important that you know about this plant bully, Youngia japonica, called youngia or Asiatic hawk’s beard.

It is an annual with a leafy rosette that looks a bit like the common dandelion, but the leaves are a pale yellow green and a bit hairy. Learn to recognize it, pull it up and throw into the trash. Don’t dare put it in your compost pile or toss it aside to die. Though it is an annual, it has quite a taproot, so dare not turn your back on this little monster unless you are certain you have extracted the whole plant, root and all! It may continue to set seed even after being pulled from the ground.

A relative newcomer in terms of exotic invasives, it was first brought to my attention a little more than a decade ago by horticulturist Sally Heiney at the N.C. Botanical Garden. She called it to the attention of all the staff as soon as it began showing up along the garden edges. Sally dutifully warned that if it were not immediately and completely destroyed, it would show up the next season by the hundreds.

I learned the hard way. I did not bother with the single plant I noticed in my yard several years ago, and the following spring the yard was literally covered with youngia, as Sally had warned. So I spent an hour or two extracting every plant and have kept careful watch every since and only now and then do I notice one or two here and there.

Take another good hard look at that basal rosette of yellowish-green leaves. Like the staff at the botanical garden, I have learned to recognize it by sight and pounce on every one I see. It literally is running rampant across gardens and pathways in Carrboro and Chapel Hill and even along some of the edges of the well-manicured plantings on the UNC campus.

How amazed I was two weeks ago while viewing the spectacular Dutchman’s breeches display along the Flat River north of Durham; several of us spotted a single rosette of this plant hunkered down amongst all those native beauties. You really do learn to spot it. We pounced on it in unison and brought it out with us. We kept a watchful eye out for more and were happy to find none.

Those tiny airborne seeds, typical of the aster family, fly far and wide, so no area is safe. We felt honorable that at least we had kept dozens, perhaps hundreds, of new plants from invading that lovely spot next year.

I know of no other exotic that has become so invasive in so short a period. So please do your part. Study the images and keep a watchful eye, and don’t leave a one to survive.

Thanks for paying attention, and next week I promise a happier story!

Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com. Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at The Annotated Flora.

By Ken Moore
Flora Columnist

It was the first weekend in April last year that I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when chancing upon carpets of the tiny little red-eyed, purple-petaled bluets carpeting the sacred ground of the Sparrow Cemetery out on Mt. Carmel Church Road.

Not to be confused with the common bluet, also called Quaker Ladies, Houstonia caerulea, this red-eyed little gem of a flower is called the tiny bluet, Houstonia pusilla.

I made a mental note to return this year to see the hundreds upon hundreds of tiny bluets spreading across that quiet, revered landscape. Two weeks ago I checked to see if they had begun to appear.

Since everything seems to be several weeks ahead this spring, I was not surprised to find them already cheerfully in flower. They were not, however, at peak, so you can still see them.

If you explore the higher ground of the cemetery you will discover that you must step carefully to avoid crushing them.

If the sunlight is angled just perfectly, you may see them as pale-purple carpets across the open grassy surface. The flowers are so small (1/8-inch across) that you’ll have to drop to your knees to get a closer look at the intense blood-red eye.

Tiny bluets are annuals that move around the landscape, seeking openings in yards in early spring before the grasses grow tall enough to shade them.

Most folks are familiar with the pale-blue bluet, the Quaker Ladies, also called the common bluet, which is two to three times larger than its tiny cousin. The common bluet is distinguished by its yellow eye. It is a perennial and is most frequently spied along bare woodland trails and scattered on mossy banks. If you maintain a moss garden by keeping fallen leaves raked away during fall and winter, you most likely have the pale-blue, almost white Quaker Ladies happily holding court on your moss carpet right now. They return year after year on mossy grounds.

I don’t recall seeing these two different bluets growing together, and I’m wondering if they may have different soil preferences. The mossy carpets holding Quaker Ladies occur on naturally acidic ground, while the tiny bluets appear more commonly with grasses in yards that are not very acidic. I’ll have to keep thinking about that.

Another good spot to find tiny bluets is along the old farm road bisecting the second set of fields at Mason Farm Biological Reserve. A little farther along you’ll find Quaker Ladies, by themselves, scattered along shady edges.

While you’re out practicing close-to-the-ground “belly botany,” keep an eye out for the little wild field pansy, Viola bicolor, that varies in color from white to purple, with dark stripes and a yellow center. Sometimes they are numerous enough to appear as carpets of color on the ground, and lying on such a carpet is another died-and-gone-to-heaven kind of experience.

Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com. Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at The Annotated Flora.

By Ken Moore
Flora columnist

More than four weeks ago Dave Otto spotted a trout lily in flower on Bolin Creek. Since then I have seen what I would describe as “peak” trout lily flowering along many woodland trails. Normally “peak” flowering lasts only a week or so, and two weeks ago, during my final winter flora field trip, I called attention to lily seed capsules already ripening and slumping to the ground. Soon those capsules will split open, and eager ants will collect and bury the seed in their underground condominiums.

So last week while surveying the Adams Tract tree identification markers, I was pleasantly surprised on my descent down to Bolin Creek. The northern slopes of the Adams Tract were sheer carpets of trout lilies in “peak” flowering, as far as the eye could see.

One has to marvel at nature’s wisdom, not allowing this tiny woodland lily to put all its eggs in one basket, so to speak. Flowers appear early at some locations (think of micro environmental niches like sun exposure and cool air pockets) and later at other locations.

And, as is certainly the case along Bolin Creek, plants at any particular site do not flower all at once. Though most of the population may flower in unison, there are always a few that pop up early and a few that linger past the prime of the others. They are spreading their opportunities for success over the entire short six- to eight-week seasonal appearance above ground. Such strategic wisdom is characteristic throughout nature’s diverse populations of flora and fauna.

While it was wonderful to view carpets of lilies, mosses, ferns, grasses and other flowers on the steep slopes above the creek, it was terrible to observe several long patches of bare ground where bunches of mosses and even the bulbs of trout lilies were left exposed to wither along the edges.

The Town of Carrboro was not given additional resources when handed the extra responsibilities of erosion control and trail maintenance of the Adams Tract, so it is especially bothersome that residents don’t support their efforts to manage the trails and protect the slopes. As dog walkers frequently don’t keep their pets leashed as requested by town signage, neither do walkers, runners and bikers keep to town-designated trails during their visits. Visitors who choose to step over barriers to closed trails or make their own short cuts contribute to erosion and degradation of the wildflower slopes.

Additional deterioration of the vegetation on the slopes results from unsupervised children who naturally like to climb and scramble over rocks and up and down steep slopes. The mossy wildflower slopes of Bolin Creek are not an appropriate playground.

Perhaps Friends of Bolin Creek, who partnered with the town for the grant providing funds for the tree labels years ago, and the neighbors who cherish the corridor may combine their energies to educate visitors to treat the area with more respect. Those slopes have no defense against our footsteps.

Please do walk the trails often during this season to make your own discoveries, taking care that your footsteps are gentle ones, and gently educate others to follow your example.

Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com. Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at The Annotated Flora.

By Ken Moore
Flora Columnist
This is the time in our changing seasons when we might become alarmed that some of our red cedar trees are diseased or otherwise sickly. And no wonder, as we observe many of the common red cedars, Juniperus virginiana, covered with what appears to be some kind of reddish-colored fungus or outright dead foliage.

Take a sigh of relief in knowing these reddish specimens are merely the male plants in full spring-flowering mode. You see, like holly trees, the cedars come to us as separate male and female plants. What we are seeing now, appearing like reddish foliage, is the bursting forth of countless tiny, male pollen-bearing, cone-like structures. They are so plentiful on some trees that they cover the entire leafy surface. Many of the ones I’ve observed closely during the past week have already dispersed their clouds of fine pollen and, amazingly, those little empty cones still cling to the trees following recent torrential rains.

In contrast, the female trees, some of them still bearing mature bluish juniper berries, retain a healthy green appearance. Even with a hand lens, the miniscule female flowers, waiting for windborne pollen from the males, are barely discernible. Once pollinated those tiny flowers, lacking petals, develop green berries that slowly mature to become visible in the fall.

A little later in the spring, another alarming-looking phenomenon, cedar apple rust, appears on the cedars. During wet, warmish days, some of the cedars bearing 1- to 2-inch round, hardened galls, become ornamented with bizarre bright-orange, jelly-like horns, which produce spores that infect nearby apple trees. In return, the apple tree responds with fungal spores that re-infect the red cedar to produce new galls. Cedar trees are not harmed, but the apple tree is often defoliated and the fruit rendered worthless.

Folks with apple trees, especially those with apple orchids, strive to eliminate cedar trees from apple tree proximity to insure tasty, good-looking apples.

Otherwise, common red cedar is very valuable. Not only is it a fine native tree that can thrive on bare dry soils, but it is valuable as a commercial wood, with old-timey cedar chests and long-lasting fence posts coming quickly to mind. Cedar chips for alternative indoor moth protection are a weekly commodity at the Carrboro Farmers’ Market, and many Native American-style flutes are made of cedar wood.

In addition, the evergreen habit provides important shelter and nesting for birds, and the berries are valuable nourishment for many animal species. It is the single host tree for the lovely Juniper Hairstreak butterfly.

Red cedar is sacred in Native-American culture. Cherokees only burned the wood on ceremonial occasions, believing the smoke expelled evil spirits. Medicinal uses of all parts of the tree for all types of ailments are well documented.

It is hard to resist passing a cedar tree without smelling the scale-like leaves and tasting a berry or two. And it’s comforting to know the dramatic spring appearances are normal in nature’s seasonal cycles.

Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com. Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at The Annotated Flora (carrborocitizen.com/flora).