What is it Wednesday: March 2, 2022

 

Can you identify what's in this photo?

 

 

Each Wednesday morning 

on Camp Lutherlyn's Facebook page

 the Lutherlyn Environmental Education Program posts a photo. 

 

 

Readers have all morning and afternoon 

to make their best guess about what the photo is. 

 

Around 6 pm LEEP provides the answer and a brief explanation.

 

 

Each week's What is it Wednesday post 

will also be posted on the Nature of Lutherlyn blog, 

 after it is posted on Facebook,

sometimes with additional bonus information. 

 

In addition to bringing you current editions of What is it Wednesday 

on the Nature of Lutherlyn blog, 

we will be reposting old editions,

creating a What is it Wednesday archive. 

 

This photo was posted as a What is it Wednesday on

March 2, 2022. 

 

 

 

And the answer is....

 

 

This little cluster of trees are young ash trees,
all growing from the stump of an ash tree that died several years ago.

Ash branches are distinctive because they are one of the few types of trees in our area to have opposite branching pattern – the twigs look like arms growing directly across from each other on the branch. Maples also have opposite branching pattern, but ash twigs are thicker and lighter in color than maples, especially our red maples.

ash twigs with opposite branching pattern

Ash trees are champion stump-sprouters. After an ash tree has died or been cut down, new shoots will grow up out of the stump that was left behind. 

Almost all of our mature ash trees at Lutherlyn (and in much of western Pennsylvania) have died.This is because of the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that lays eggs inside the bark of ash trees. When those eggs hatch, the larvae digging their way out of the tree kills the tree. 

But, ash trees are not gone from Lutherlyn, because so many of the ash stumps sprouted new growth. By the time these trees get bigger, the emerald ash borer population may be low enough that not all of the trees in an area will be killed by them in the next generation.  New life emerges out of the death that went before.

For more on emerald ash borers, check out this blog post from back in 2013: https://lutherlynnature.blogspot.com/2013/02/ashes-to-ashes.html . 

Like and follow Camp Lutherlyn on Facebook, to see What is it Wednesday posts when they come out and have the opportunity to share your guesses in the comments!