Common Hackberry
Celtis occidentalis
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Common hackberry is most common in the midwestern US. It's rare in Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and along the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to Virginia. It's occasionally found in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia. Hackberries tolerate a wide variety of soil conditions, but thrive in fertile, moist, and well drained soils.
Fruit: A 8-11 mm drupe. They ripen in September or October and remain on the tree into the winter or spring.
Flowers: A single tree produces both staminate and pistillate flowers. Both are usually solitary but can be borne in clusters of 3, but pistillate flowers occur in the axils of new leaves and staminate flowers occur at the end of new branches. They develop at the same time as leaves, in April or May.
Uses: The wood is used in furniture, baskets, crates, and some athletic equipment.
Ethnobotany: Parts of the tree were used for food, fuel, and medicine in the past by Native Americans.
Importance to wildlife: Black cherry supports Hackberry Emperor and Question Mark Butterfly larvae. The food is eaten by many birds and small mammals. It also provides shelter for birds as well as rabbits and deer in the young stands.
The bark of a hackberry. Bark is brownish gray, consisting of corky knobs and narrow ridges.
A single leaf on a hackberry. Leaves are 5-15 cm long, palmately veined, sharply toothed (though sometimes entire below middle of the leaf), usually unsymmetrical at the base, dark green above, paler green beneath, and either smooth or rough on both sides.
A hackberry leaf with more visible palmate venation.
Leaf arrangement on a hackberry. Leaves are simple and alternate.
The pith of a hackberry. The pith is finely chambered, especially near nodes.
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