Meet a Tree: Eastern Cottonwood
By Kassandra Tuten, Editor
The eastern cottonwood (Populus deltoides) is a cottonwood poplar native to North America, growing throughout the eastern, central and southwestern United States as well as the southern Canadian prairies, the southernmost part of eastern Canada and northeastern Mexico. It is one of the fastest growing trees in North America.
One of the largest North American hardwood trees, eastern cottonwood can grow up to 65-100 feet tall with a trunk up to 9 feet in diameter. The bark is silvery-white, smooth or lightly fissured when young, becoming dark gray and deeply fissured on old trees.
The twigs are grayish-yellow and stout, with large triangular leaf scars. The winter buds are slender, pointed, 1-2 centimeters long, yellowish brown and resinous. The leaves are large, triangular and very coarsely toothed; they are dark green in summer and turn yellow in the fall (but many cottonwoods in dry locations drop their leaves early from the combination of drought and leaf rust, making their fall color dull or absent). Due to their flat stems, the leaves have the tendency to shake from even the slightest breeze, one of the identifying characteristics of the tree.
The flowers (catkins) produce on single-sex trees in early spring. The male (pollen) catkins are reddish-purple and the female catkins are green with several 6-15-millimeter seed capsules (samaras) in early summer. The samaras split open to release the numerous small seeds attached to cotton-like strands. A single tree may release 40 million seeds a season.
Eastern cottonwood requires bare soil and full sun for successful germination and establishment. In natural conditions, it usually grows near rivers, with mud banks left after floods providing ideal conditions for seedling germination. Human soil cultivation has allowed it to increase its range away from such habitats. Unlike related species such as quaking aspen, eastern cottonwood does not propagate through clonal colonies, but will resprout readily when cut down. Eastern cottonwood is found throughout Minnesota, often forming extensive groves.
Eastern cottonwood leaves serve as food for caterpillars of various Lepidoptera.
The wood of eastern cottonwood is typical of the Populus family in its softness, weighing just 28 pounds per cubic foot. It is utilized for plywood, interior parts of furniture, boxes, fencing, fuel, rough lumber for inside use and making high-grade magazine paper for printing half-tone illustrations. Eastern cottonwood is also used extensively for windbreaks owing to its rapid growth and adaptability to soil.
Eastern cottonwoods typically live 70-100 years, but they have the potential to live 200-400 years in ideal conditions.
Did You Know:
Calling the cottonwood tree “the pioneer of the prairie,” the Kansas state legislature designated the cottonwood the official state tree of Kansas in 1937. It became the state tree of Wyoming in 1947 and that of Nebraska in 1972.