Cottonwood

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Cottonwood

Cottonwood

Cottonwood pistillate catkins

Cottonwood habit

Cottonwood buds

Cottonwood

Cottonwood staminate catkins

Cottonwood fruit

Cottonwood leaf

Cottonwood buds

Cottonwood habit

Cottonwood bark

Cottonwood fruit

Cottonwood pistillate catkins

Cottonwood seeds

Cottonwood leaves

Cottonwood fruit

Morphology

Trunk

Erect, 3-6+ feet diameter; bark gray, furrows deep, ridges wide, flat; wood light brown or tan, soft.

Twigs

Olive-brown to yellowish brown or gray, brittle, glabrous; leaf scars shallowly crescent-shaped to half-round; buds tan, ovoid,.24 to 1.1 inch, apex acute.

Leaves

Alternate, deciduous, broadly triangular, 1.6 to 5.6 inches long, .6 to 6 inches wide, thick, firm, glabrous; upper surface green, shiny; lower surface paler; margins toothed, teeth incurved; stalk slender, 1.2 to 3+ inches long; base flat or wedge-shaped to heart-shaped; tip long-tapering to point; leaves bright yellow in autumn.

Flowers

Inflorescences axillary from wood of the previous year, catkins, pendent; staminate catkins 3.2 to 4.8 inches, many-flowered; pistillate catkins 1.2 to 2.4 inches, many-flowered. Flowers unisexual, radially symmetric; perianth a non-nectariferous saucer-shaped disk, .04 to .16 inch diam.; staminate: stamens (30-)40-80; pistillate: pistil 1, styles 2-4; stigmas 2-4.

Fruit

May to July; capsules, short-stalked, initially green, later brown, in drooping catkins 3.2 to 11 inches long; seeds light brown, about 1/6 inch long, with dense tuft of long, cottony hairs.

Ecology

Habitat

Stream banks, river bottoms, lake shores; moist soils, but will grow in drier situations.

Distribution

Throughout Kansas

Practical Information

Uses

Native Americans used the buds, seeds, and inner bark for food and boiled the seeds to make a yellow dye for arrow feathers. Children would chew the fruit as gum, use the green, unopened fruit as beads, and would fashion toy tipis from the leaves. The leaves were also used by girls too make a flute-like instrument. The wood was used to make ceremonial poles and branches used as forage for horses.

Additional Notes