FREMONT COTTONWOOD TREE

Cottonwood trees are fast-growing, tall, and can be massive. Older ones have a thick, stout trunk that is grayish-brown or pale gray and marked by deep furrows, coarse ridges, and horizontal splits. These trees provide shade and windbreaks, and they help stabilize stream banks. 

These trees can live up to100 years or more (even 400 years!). Their native range is the eastern half of the USA. Today, they can found in the western half of the USA, Canada,  and Mexico.

The image shown below is a Fremont cottonwood tree growing in a public park near where I live in southern California, north of Los Angeles.

Figure 1. A Fremont cottonwood tree in Southern California.

Figure 2. A leaf from a Fremont cottonwood tree.

Figure 3. “Cotton” fluff  (with a seed visible) from a Fremont cottonwood tree.

  Classification

Kingdom Plantae

Phylum

Clades (4 of them)

Order Malpighiales

Familly Salicaceae = the Willow family

Genus Populus

Type Species P. detoides

 Female cottonwood trees produce the “cotton” (= a white fluffy material), which contains seed capsules. In late spring, these capsules split open and lease millions of tiny seeds, each attached to a tuff of “cotton.” Thus, they are contained in “parachutes” that float around in the air, until they land and sprout.

Cottonwood trees have relatively low commercial value because their wood is not that hard. It is relatively “soft” and thus used for paper making and for some furniture. It is good for wildlife habitation but a poor choice for residential landscaping. It has low heat output when burned. It is also good for wildlife habitats and for woodworking. 

Their geologic time range is early Eocene (about 50 million years ago) to the present.