PC: Sophia Shui

Flowering dogwood & sassafras. Watercolor. 36x24 in.

Flowering dogwood, Cornus florida, is an understory tree found in oak woodlands, ravines, bluffs, and ridges. Its fruit is important for many species of wildlife, especially birds like cedar waxwings, bluebirds, and woodpeckers, and mammals such as chipmunks, foxes, and beavers. Many native insects also depend on the flowering dogwood, including bees, flies, butterflies and moths.

Sassafras, Sassafras albidum, is an understory tree found in open woodlands, sandy woodlands and savannas, glades, and edges. Leaves and twigs have a pleasant fragrance resembling fruit loops cereal when crushed or scratched. Many species of wildlife depend on sassafras, including deer, black bears, and many birds including northern bobwhite quails. Sassafras is also a host to a few butterfly and moth species, including the spicebush swallowtail butterfly.

Reference photos by: Steve Hurst, Bruce Kirchoff, Helen Lowe Metzman, Andrew Weitzel, MissouriPlants.com, Plant Image Library, iNaturalist (alisonnorthup, allenbrowne, arthur-windsor, bensmith605, cecildomyiidae, craigmartin, ewransky, hanly, heypeggy, humanbyweight, jlayman, john_baur, lotteryd, mjpapay, mmcmasters, pynklynx, ryan84, sadawolk, treegrow, theorickert), Wikimedia Commons (Famartin).

Chinquapin oak. Watercolor. 24x18 in. Prints in my Etsy shop!

Chinquapin oak, Quercus muehlenbergii, is often found in rocky upland woodlands, bluffs, savannas, and limestone glades. Oaks are keystone species, supporting hundreds of other organisms such as insects, birds, deer, small mammals, and black bears. Acorns are a high quality food source for wildlife. Blue jays play an important role in their dispersal, since they will fly up to a mile away and bury acorns. Chinquapins host many insects, including leafhoppers, beetles, gall wasps, butterflies, and moths, like the yellow-vested moth. Older trees with cavities provide homes for owls, woodpeckers, bats, and raccoons.

Reference photos by: Steven Baskauf, Krzysztof Golik, Ryan Hagerty, Bruce Kirchoff, Chris Martine, R.W. Smith, Paul Snyder, Vojtěch Zavadil, iNaturalist (charlie, keimwj, pufferchung, janabuggs, sambiology).

Sugarberry. Watercolor. 24x18 in.

Sugarberry, Celtis laevigata, grows along streams and floodplains in the southeast and south central U.S. In Missouri, it is found mainly south of the Missouri River. There is a look alike tree species with a more northern range called hackberry (Celtis occidentalis). Sugarberry fruits are loved by birds, including robins, mockingbirds, and turkeys. Other birds such as prothonotary warblers forage for insects on this tree. In addition, sugarberry hosts several insect species, including the hackberry emperor butterfly and question mark butterfly. Hackberry emperor butterfly caterpillars will only eat leaves in the Celtis genus.

Reference photos by: Homer Edward Price, Flickr (Mr.TinMD), iNaturalist (andywilson, john_abrams, kimberlietx, lanechaffin, madisong, prairie_rambler, pynklynx, reuvenm, sambiology, tnolan, wildcarrot).