Hophornbeam, eastern Photo Library
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General description of “The Cat-scratch Post”
ETYMOLOGY:
ostrya (Greek) word for a hardwood tree derived from osto (Greek): bone (reference to the tree’s exceptionally hard wood); + Virginia (the state) –ana (Latin): suffix for “belonging to.” Most of its common names reference the extremely dense, strong wood and its uses. Hop is a reference to the hop-like fruits, horn for its hardness, and beam for tree. Hackmatack is potentially a misapplication of the Abenaki word, meaning “snowshoe conifer,” which likely refers to tamarack.
Key features for ID + similar species
- Trunk looks like a well-worn cat scratch post, with papery rectangles of bark peeling off in vertical strips
Inflated fruits in clusters, look like hop cones. - I call this tree: knobhornbeam after the many knobs older trees get from old branches the trunk heals around
SIMILAR SPECIES:
While rather unique as a whole, various features of hophornbeam can be confused with other trees. The bark is somewhat reminiscent of an **apple** (apples are often multi-trunked, have stouter twigs, spur branches, and a more spreading crown) or **American elm **(elms have a more yellow spongy bark that tends to form diamonds, can grow into the canopy and in wetlands, have branches that extend upwards and bristly leaves with asymmetrical bases and larger teeth). The leaves can be confused with other **birches**, but birches (_Betula_) have horizontal lenticels and their bark doesn’t peel vertically.
Habitat
Hophornbeam is somewhat of an understory generalist. Across its range it’s found in more mesic forests under a thick hardwood canopy of maple and beech. In Vermont and the rest of its northern limits, it finds itself more often on drier slopes and rocky upland forests. It is occasionally cultivated as an ornamental.
NATURAL COMMUNITIES:Trunk
Bark thin, peeling vertically into thin C-shaped shreds (like it was “cat-scratched”), with yellows, grays, and browns. Wood diffuse-porous, hard. Heartwood brown. Sapwood thick, light brown.
Twigs
Twigs very slender, glabrous. Alternate. Pith minute.
Leaves
Leaves 2.5-5″ long, 1.5-2″ wide, alternate, simple, oblong ovate, acuminate, 2-ranked. Leaves borne singly, not in pairs or on spur shoots. Veins branch irregularly near margins. Margin sharply doubly serrate leaves. Leaves “thin but tough”, matte yellowish green and glabrous above, paler and finely pubescent below. Short, pubescent petioles. Dead brown leaves occasionally persist through winter. Turn dull yellow in the fall.
Flowers + Fruits
Trees are monoecious, maturing at around 25 years old. 1-3 male catkins form at end of branch in mid-May to mid-June. Females catkins usually in pairs, erect, appearing just after male. Wind pollinated.
Fruit is a nut covered by a bract modified to an oval flattened, inflated sac. Clusters of 5-10 fruits develop on a slender stem. The nut ripens by the end of August and sacs drop through the fall and into winter. The lightweight fruits are dispersed by both wind and birds. Epigeal germination the following spring after cold stratification. Soil cover does not affect germination rates.
Symbioses + Diseases
While rather unique as a whole, various features of hophornbeam can be confused with other trees. The bark is somewhat reminiscent of an apple (apples are often multi-trunked, have stouter twigs, spur branches, and a more spreading crown) or American elm (elms have a more yellow spongy bark that tends to form diamonds, can grow into the canopy and in wetlands, have branches that extend upwards and bristly leaves with asymmetrical bases and larger teeth). The leaves can be confused with other birches, but (Betula) have horizontal lenticels and their bark doesn’t peel vertically.
Research
Range map for Hophornbeam, eastern
Range map based on observations from iNaturalist.org.