Zinc Monuments

Zinc monuments are rare as they were made only during a couple decades starting in the 1870s.

Oakland Cemtery has quite a few of them. They are hollow inside; some say bootleggers stored booze inside of them. This monument is missing its top:

Holding my phone above it, I snapped a photo of the inside.

These monuments are also known as "white bronze" monuments even though they are mostly zinc (there is a small amount of tin in them too). I imagine the naming was a marketing move. With time, the monuments can take on a bluish hue. 

Over time, the detailing holds up a lot better than in marble:

Here is a large family zinc monument with individual monuments made out of zinc for each family member.

Read more about zinc cemetery monuments here.

Arborvitae

This allee of arborvitae (which means "tree of life") is near an entrance off Ronalds Street. 

 

Its botanical name is Thuja occidentalis. You might recall peeling strips of bark from it in your youth. It's the string cheese of the forest. 

The leaves form scales that envelop the bottom of each newer leaf. There's some fruit from last year on the tree. It's green at first and forms into a woody cone as it dries.

Almost all of these arborvitae have split trunks.

Lichen

Ash

It was only because of a few samaras left attached to this tree that I knew it was an ash. 

Although this is a younger tree, you can see a bit of a diamond pattern forming in the bark, a sign that it is a white ash (Fraxinus americana).

This tree looks lovely from afar. Its young canopy features slightly downward arching branches.

Here's some evidence of the spent flowers and old fruit.

As I zoomed in, I could clearly see an old cluster of ash samaras.

Winter ID can be tough, but leaf scars also give good clues, especially when identifying a particular species within a genus. This leaf scar is another clue that it is white ash (click on the image to zoom in).

Champion Tree in Oakland Cemetery

According to Big Trees of Iowa, there is an Iowa State champion (ranked #3) in the cemetery.

It's a Swamp White Oak (Quercus bicolor), and here are its measurements:

Circumference:13'8" 

Height: 78' 

Average Crown Spread: 105.5'

The document states that it is "near the machine shed at the north end of the cemetery."

This oak is easy to ID in summertime because of the silvery underside of its leaves (hence the specific epithet). Winter ID proves a little harder but is facilitated by its bark, which can peel on younger branches and twigs. This bud and twig key might be of use.

Once I find this champion, I'll report back with photos.

Yew

As I walked further into the cemetery on Saturday, I noticed this grouping of Japanese yews around a mausoleum. According to the cemetery tree walk pamphlet, it's Taxus cuspidata 'Capitata', planted around 1890. This forest was probably not created intentionally. Imagine four tiny yew shrubs decorating the newly built mausoleum. They must have looked pretty cute. When planting, some people don't imagine that what they put in the ground will continue to grow over the next decades, over the next century, over the next 130 years... But this is the result:

On the back of the mausoleum, it reads "Miller" (click the photo to enlarge it)...

...while on the front, "Burger" is written above the door. I wonder what the relationship was between the Burgers and the Millers and who is buried inside.

A Tree Walk in Oakland Cemetery

I found this pamphlet from 1994 entitled "A Tree Walk in Oakland Cemetery." It lists the route they took and notable trees and monuments along the way.

Shagbark Hickory

I came across this tree in Outlot 1 (according to the map), and immediately thought Shagbark Hickory (Carya ovata). That bark exfoliating in large strips is a dead giveaway. I saw more of the bark on the ground.

To confirm the ID, I needed to find some nuts. I spotted these on the ground:

Flipping them over, I found that a squirrel had already eaten the meat inside:

This majestic tree toward over me and had a surprisingly small canopy at the top. I imagine other big trees must have been near it in the past, restricting its canopy spread. It's also toward the northern limit of its range here in Iowa City, so perhaps that restricts its growth as well.

Countdown...

I only have a few months left in Iowa City, so I have to finally start the project I've been wanting to do since I got here. No, not my thesis. That project is already underway... and I might not finish it because of this new project.

This project is just like its sister blog, Green-Wood Trees, in which I photographed trees throughout a 500-acre cemetery in Brooklyn and made posts about them (either the species or that particular specimen). One difference is that I'll be exclusively shooting on my crappy iPhone camera (I don't have time to edit RAW files right now). I also won't have the four seasons, but maybe three. It is technically still winter, so I'll begin now, then race to photograph the achingly short spring, and finally in my last months here, I'll document the trees in summer.

I have the advantage of this online map of the cemetery. Using it, I can point you toward the trees I photograph so you can go appreciate their beauty IRL. Enjoy!