Florida Native Plant Society Blog

Pileated woodpeckers work a red bay ( (Persea borbonia ) before it was killed by the laurel wilt disease. Trees are so important! And to receive the maximum benefits with the least amount of effort, plant a tree native to your region and one that's been bred from local stock.  Here is a post to help with this: Natives for your landscape: an FNPS tool for you . In addition to being beautiful and supporting local wildlife, here are a few of the more quantifiable benefits.   Trees: - clean the air. In 1991, Chicago's 51 million trees “removed an estimated 17 tons of carbon monoxide, 93 tons of sulfur dioxide, 98 tons of nitrogen dioxide, 210 tons of ozone, and 234 tons of particulate matter. They [also] sequestered about 155,000 tons of carbon. ... where trees were large and lush, they could improve air quality by as much as 15 percent during the hottest hours of midday. More trees and bigger trees meant cleaner air." ( What Is a Tree Worth ) - absorb wat...

Although great strides have been made in gardening with native plants, a surprisingly large number of the approximately 2,800 plants native to Florida are overlooked or under-utilized by the gardening public, including native plant gardeners. One such plant is Acer negundo , commonly known as box-elder and, more rarely, as the ashleaf maple.

 Growth habit in the spring after box-elder has flowered but before the foliage has grown to full size (courtesy of  Wikimedia Commons ). If you live within the natural range of box-elder, I hope that you will give this easily-grown and adaptable native tree a place in your garden, and I have summarized below the information on box-elder that is of most interest to gardeners. Growth habit of a large, mature, multi-stemmed tree with fully-grown foliage (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons ). Scientific Name :  Acer negundo  Linnaeus Family : Sapindaceae Common Names:  Box-Elder or Ashleaf Maple Habit:  Sho...