Shade Trees for the Plains 



green for driveway planting and as or- 

 namental shade tree. 



Mango. Tall, broad evergreen for 

 ornamental shade and, where selected 

 strains are used, for fruit also. 



Cajeput-tree. Medium-tall, yellow- 

 flowered, slender evergreen for wind- 

 break, beach, driveway, ornamental 

 shade. 



Cuban royalpalm. Tall palm with 

 decorative, smooth trunk, for driveway 

 and as large landscape ornamental on 

 moist soils. 



African tuliptree, or Bell flambeau- 

 tree. Tall, rapid-growing, semidecid- 

 uous, conspicuously flowered tree for 

 ornamental and shade. 



West Indies mahogany. Tall, slender 

 evergreen that gives light shade for 



lawn, driveway, and general planting. 



The authors are forest pathologists 

 in the Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, 

 and Agricultural Engineering of the 

 Department of Agriculture. 



RALPH M. LINDGREN is in charge of 

 the field headquarters of the Division 

 of Forest Pathology in New Orleans. 

 Dr. Lindgren is a graduate of the Uni- 

 versity of Minnesota. 



R. P. TRUE is stationed in Lake City, 

 Fla. Dr. True is a graduate of the Uni- 

 versity of Pennsylvania. 



E. RICHARD TOOLE is stationed in 

 Asheville, N. C. He has been working 

 for several years on mimosa wilt and 

 other diseases of shade trees. Dr. Toole 

 is a graduate of Duke University. 



SHADE TREES FOR THE PLAINS 



ERNEST WRIGHT, T. W. BRETZ 



Good care is doubly important for 

 shade trees in the Plains States. 



Trees planted on shallow soil under- 

 lain with clay or other hardpans have 

 little chance of survival unless watered 

 artificially and, even then, growth is 

 generally unsatisfactory. The best and 

 deepest soil available should be chosen 

 so tree roots can develop unhindered. 



Cultivation, following planting, is 

 necessary to help the trees compete 

 with prairie grasses and other native 

 vegetation. Cultivation should be shal- 

 low to avoid unnecessary injury to tree 

 roots near the surface. After the crowns 

 of the trees are well developed, par- 

 ticularly in group plantings, they tend 

 to shade out competing vegetation, and 

 cultivation may no longer be necessary. 

 The tree also must be protected from 

 injury by livestock and sometimes from 

 damage by rodents. 



At best, most of the trees planted in 

 the Plains States are relatively short- 

 lived as compared to the same species 

 growing in more favorable regions. 



Coarse and droughty gravels, clay- 

 pan soils, the undrained alkaline basins 



802062 49 6 



(buffalo wallows), and shale-derived 

 upland soils generally are unsuited for 

 trees. Furthermore, the western third 

 of the Plains States, from Texas to the 

 Dakotas, have areas where the soil is 

 deficient in iron or where iron or other 

 essential nutrients are unavailable to 

 growing trees. 



Unavailability of iron causes chlo- 

 rosis, or yellowing, of the leaves of 

 some tree species, reduces growth, and 

 frequently brings on premature death. 

 Also, in Texas and Oklahoma along 

 the Red River and southward east of 

 the high plains, certain large areas are 

 infested with the cotton root rot fun- 

 gus, an indigenous soil fungus that 

 infects the roots of many kinds of 

 trees and eventually kills them. A few 

 species, however, are highly resistant 

 to the disease and will usually survive 

 satisfactorily. The susceptibility of sev- 

 eral of the more important tree species 

 to cotton root rot is indicated later. 



Adequate artificial watering of the 

 shade and street trees is frequently not 

 practicable in the Plains. In such cases 

 their survival depends largely on rain 



