Heart-leaf hornbeam
Carpinus cordata · Betulaceae · 까치박달
How to spot it
Compared with other hornbeams (Carpinus), its leaves are larger with many veins, and the parallel veins stand out. The fruit spike is wrapped in leaf-like bracts and looks like a long pine cone.
Look
- Leaves
- Egg-shaped, long egg-shaped or elliptic, 7.5 to 10 (14) cm long and 4 to 5 (7) cm wide, with a long-pointed tip and a heart-shaped base. The margin has irregular double teeth and there are 16 to 22 pairs of side veins.
- Flowers
- In April to May, as the leaves emerge, male catkins 1 to 6 cm long grow at the tips of one-year-old twigs, and female catkins are cylindrical and hang down.
- Fruit
- The fruit spike is cylindrical, 6 to 8 cm long and 4.5 cm wide, densely covered with leaf-like bracts (15 to 20 mm long); the nutlets are elliptic (3 to 4 mm long) and ripen in September.
- Bark
- The bark is gray, almost smooth, and fissured lengthwise.
Where it grows
- In Korea
- Native (Korean Peninsula)
- Native to
- Found in China, Japan and the Russian Far East; in Korea it grows nationwide.
- Ecology
- Grows in forest and is relatively shade-tolerant. Very cold hardy, it grows in shade or sun and suits deep, fertile, moist sandy loam. Drought tolerance and resprouting are poor, but pollution resistance is high and it grows well on the seashore.