On my morning walks, I often see trees, especially black walnuts, covered in mistletoe, Phoradendron leucarpum. Mistletoe is abundant in the Bluegrass on many trees, especially black walnut.

Professor Joyce Onyenedum is a skilled botanist, a professor at NYU, and a great storyteller. If you are looking for more well-told stories about plants, you want to visit her YouTube channel. Check her out!

Our wet summer is allowing many trees wo produce late flushes of growth, often with pale leaves. This is quite unusual in chinkapin oak, a slow-growing tree. Here is a huge chinkapin oak in a woodland pasture in the Bluegrass, and a second flush of growth with pale leaves.

This is the oldest known painting of a tree. It is on a rock wall in Serra di Capivara National Park in Brazil. The painting is at least 20,000 years old. Learn more at Our Trees.

Encouraging news came this week of a reinvigorated program to restore blight-resistant American chestnut. If successful, this would be the biggest news for our eastern forests since the chestnuts were wiped out before 1950. This is reason for optimism.

The Trump regime wants to destroy American science. One big step to maintain our strong science just happened, as Dr. Neil Shubin became President of the US National Academy of Sciences. Shubin is an important paleontologist and an equally important interpreter of science for the lay public.

On a warm, breezy morning before the rains come, we like to hang the kids out to dry.

The Indonesian volcano Gunung Merapi is seen just after midnight on July 4 2026, in celebration of the natural world, instead of our political world.

Here is a magnificent kingnut, Carya laciniosa. Kingnut was the original English name, but it was later called shellbark hickory. The original name is far more appropriate. This is an exceptionally large and elegant specimen in a woodland pasture, with a blue ash behind it.

Here is some late evening Bluesky for you, along with a blue ash tree and a moon. Enjoy!

If you were making beer in Kentucky in 1779, you did not have access to the ingredients we use now. Instead, settlers used honeylocust and persimmon fruit. I have made beer according to the recipe in the linked story and it was quite good. Check out the story at Our Trees.

For your enjoyment, here is an ancient bur oak, Quercus macrocarpa, under a full moon on the University of Kentucky campus. Photo by Tom Kimmerer

Late season flushes of growth in trees, leading to pale yellow-green foliage, used to be an uncommon late summer phenomenon. Now, it is happening every year, a result of climate change. Read about it at Our Trees.

The summer solstice is not just a calendar entry. It is a signal to all the trees in temperate zones in the north to begin preparation to survive the winter cold. Yes, today, the growing season ends for most trees. Have a look at the trees you walk by. Most of them have probably already set buds.

Here is the current global warming stripe for the US. We are making progress toward renewable energy, but the fossil fuel oligarchy and its minions in the trump regime are doing everything they can to slow the adoption of renewables. They will fail, but every day of delay makes the crisis worse.

This is Gunung Merapi (Fire Mountain) near Yogyakarta, Indonesia from a live camera tonight. The Special Region of Yogyakarta is one of the most fascinating, beautiful places on Earth. I taught at Universitas Gadjah Madah and had the pleasure of climbing Gunung Merapi. I hope it settles down soon.

The fruit flies in my kitchen always remind me of the great biologist Tom Morgan, who grew up down the street from where I live. Read about him here.

A true story of the cobra under my desk.

Sassafras is an important tree both for its stunning beauty and for its long history in cuisine and medicine. Have a look at Our Trees.

Baldcypress is a glorious tree in southeastern wetlands, the longest-lived eastern tree and one of the largest. It is increasingly common in urban landscapes. Do you know this tree? Take a look at Our Trees.

I have seen many stories on Substack and elswhere claiming that almonds are a good choice for our health. This is true, but there are better choices for our planet, and the best choice is pecans.

Here is another tree with a history tied to us. Catalpa is a gorgeous tree, but its native range is tiny. Due to a 19th century craze in planting this tree for railroad ties, it is now everywhere. It made lousy railroad ties, but it sure is nice to have in our landscapes. Read more at Our Trees.

Osage-orange, or hedge-apple, is a tree very familiar to those of us in the Bluegrass, where it was widely planted for natural fencing and hedges. Do you find this tree where you live?

Black locust is a very successful tree in our human-dominated world. It is spectacular in flower and produces exceptionally fine honey. Learn more about this amazing tree at Our Trees.

Do you know this spectacular little tree? It is fringetree, Chionanthus virginicus, and is one of the most beautiful flowering trees. It common in lowland forests of the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains, but is abundant along the Rockcastle River in Kentucky. It is a wonderful native ornamental.

This is the view from the front porch of my home in Borneo. Now, back in Kentucky, I am thoroughly enjoying a week of rainy days, which should end our spring drought. Do you love rainy days?

People say they are allergic to showy flowers like the black locust on the left. They are looking at the wrong trees. Showy flowers are animal pollinated and their pollen is too large to cause allergies. It is nearby dull flowers like the oak on the right, wind-pollinated, that deserve the blame.

One of the highlights of life in Malaysia and Indonesia is the pasar malam, or night market. It is the vibrant social center of many communities, and is a major source of food, way better than the super market. Read about it at Our Trees (free).

It is Derby Weekend in Kentucky. See how horse agriculture benefits the preservation of open space, and especially of the rare woodland pasture ecosystem of the Bluegrass.

Tree sex is beautiful, complex, and intricate. Here is the first of our series on tree sex.

Red maple is one of the dominant trees of eastern forests and of urban areas everywhere. They are now coming into the season when winged seeds will fly everywhere. Have a look.

The rain has passed, the trees are growing furiously, and it's a perfect time to get out in your local park for play, like these two small guys who have recruited their dads for kite flying.

Yellow-poplar or tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipifera, is one of the most dramatic trees in our flora, especially in spring. Have a look at Our Trees.

We are all paying attention to spring trees, but flowers seem to get all the attention. Vegetative growth, as buds open and leaves enlarge, are doing complicated, interesting things, and they are certainly worth a close look.

One of our most spectacular trees, black locust, is beginning to flower. Learn more about this amazing tree.

The durian, often called the king of fruit, is very popular in Indonesia and Malaysia, where it is native. I love them, and ate many when I lived there. But there is some controversy over its smell.

This is my favorite spring flower, American sycamore, Platanus occidentalis. It is a bottomland tree in most places, but in the limestone karst of the Bluegrass, it is an abundant upland tree. What is your favorite spring flower?

This amazing white flower is found on the Franklinia tree. Franklinia is beautiful and extinct. It can no longer be found in our forests to which it was once native. Read about it here, and let us know in the story comments if you have seen this tree. Story is open to everyone.

Many people are plagued by allergies to spring tree pollen. But let’s be sure to blame the right trees. Here is a story about tree pollination, a very interesting subject. This post is available to everyone.

Every day, we consume tree products, often without knowing it. The tears of trees, gums and resins, are ubiquitous in our lives. The fragrance of frankincense is probably familiar to most of us. We encounter tears of trees every day, in food, drink, cosmetics, printed pages, and may not realize it.

Redbud trees are spectacular early-flowering trees in the Bluegrass and much of the Eastern Deciduous Forest. They beautiful, and also have some complex flowering behavior that I don't fully understand. Have a look at the story (open to everyone).

You probably know that humans contain enormous populations of bacteria, especially on our skin and in our guts. New research shows that trees also contain huge numbers of microbes in their wood. This discovery will change our understanding of trees, including the diverse smells that they produce.

Trees produce a vast array of volatile chemicals for their own purposes. Many of these chemicals provide pleasant scents to humans. More importantly, we now know that these scents can improve our cognition and even reverse serious neurogical disorders.

In the glory of spring flowers, it is often worth a closer look. Sometimes a flower is not what it seems. Have a look at Our Trees.

Yesterday, we showed you some spring tree pictures at Our Trees. Several of you were able to identify some of the trees. Here are all of them. How did you do?

This is a terrific opportunity for a sharp undergrad to work in a top-notch lab. I was able to take a year working as a lab tech before grad school, and it was a great decision. Highly recommended.

Let's celebrate Spring Trees. Today, we begin a week of spring tree stories at Our Trees. Have a look!

Trump is destroying the US Forest Service and firing its employees. This picture appeared in the NY Times today. It appears to show Trump teaching Rubio how to measure tree diameter so he can take over managemnt of our forests.

Everyone is going to want to read this. Available in November, but worth ordering soon.

It feels like it's still winter, doesn't it? To trees, it is not. Tree dormancy is not caused by weather but by internal chemical signals which protect trees from cold. Now, most trees are ready to grow as soon as it warms a bit. This photo shows the tremendous flow of sap. Read more at Our Trees.