The leaves may be changing soon, but the College of Wooster’s Herbarium Sheets Collection is available to you all year round, thanks to DPLA. From their site: “The Herbarium Sheets Collection was created and donated by Mary Ronsheim while she was a student at the College of Wooster in 1950. The sheets contain leaves collected on the College of Wooster campus and at nearby locations in the community. This collection will be of particular interest to those interested in regional history and dendrology. For a map of current trees on campus, please see: Gift & Memorial Trees”
Courtesy College of Wooster Special Collections
The Mockernut Hickory tree is common in the mid- and southeastern United States. It can grow up to 100 feet and live up to 500 years, and is valued for its high quality wood for furniture making and more. It’s easy to identify, too, as the underside of its leaves are covered in lots of short hairs that contributed to its species name of Carya tomentosa (tomentum is Latin for ‘covered with short hairs’).