Dead and Ancient Language Bring New Life to Our Morning...

It’s not my fault I cannot easily recognize trees from their leaves. I blame my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Sitton, of Moyer Elementary. She decided not to continue the time-honored tradition of all 6th graders creating their own leaf collection and tree identification scrap book when it was my turn. So, I never caught the “bug” so to speak.

Well, Bill Twomey did his best to help a capacity crowd of Coastal Master Naturalists fill in their respective gaps, no matter how large or small, on the 5th day of June, 2026. (I am pretty sure that Mrs. Sitton could never have told us the Latin (or Greek) genus and species names for the trees, much less from whence those were derived).

Although the focus was to be on Angiosperms (plants with flowers and seeds enclosed within a fruit or ovary), there was plenty of discussion of the more ancient Gymnsoperms (plants whose seeds are naked, unprotected by an ovary or fruit, but rather resting on the scales of cones) as well.

Among this latter are the six pines found in the Lowcountry (Slash, Loblolly, Long Leaf, Spruce, Shortleaf, and Pond). Limited to a range south of the Santee, the Spruce Pine (Pinus glabra) is found in mesic habitats, often with hardwoods, and is characterized by twisted needles and the production of small, slowly maturing cones. “Glabra” is the Latin word for “smooth” , and refers to this tree’s smooth bark on young trees and twigs compared to the rough, scaly bark typical of other Southern pines.

Among the myriad angiosperms we admired were included the three “Nyssas” of the Nyssacae (Tupelo) family: The Water Tupelo (N. aquatica), the Swamp Gum (n. biflora), and the Upland Black Gum (N. sylvatica). In this case, a Greek word, “Nyssa”, was chosen by Carl Linnaeus to match these swamp and bottomland-loving species to the mythical water nymphs of Greek mythology.

And, finally, my personal favorite was the Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), a member of the large Rubiaceae family of tropical and subtropical plants (including my other favorite, the Coffee plant!). Pollinators love this plant. Hundreds of tiny, individual flowers are packed into a sphere. It’s scientific name is derived from two Greek words: Kephale (meaning “head”) and Anthos (meaning “flower”), and when you look at a this picture of its flower, it makes perfect sense!