The Cottonwood Tree, "Pioneer of the Prairie"

To My Email Subscribers: Beginning July 1, 2021, the Blogger e-mail Feedburner subscription service will be turned off. Therefore, you will no longer receive emails when a new post is published at Mille Fiori Favoriti. I offer you the alternative of joining Bloglovin and subscribing to follow Mille Fiori Favoriti there. You will then receive emails when I publish a new post.
Alternatively, you can also make a note of my blog's URL: https://millefiorifavoriti.blogspot.com
and then check weekly, usually on Mondays, for a new blog post.
I hope you will use one of these alternatives. Thank you for reading my blog, published since 2007! I look forward to seeing all of you here at Mille Fiori Favoriti

A lovely Cottonwood tree in a local park gives beauty and shade. There’s a type of Cottonwood tree for nearly any region, with different hardy types in Zones 2 through 9. The Kansas Legislature designated Cottonwood as the State Tree in 1937, calling it the "pioneer tree of the prairie." Here in Colorado they are one of the largest native broadleaf trees found along the front range

What else do Cottonwood trees give us this time of the year?

They give us lots and lots of cotton-like seed fluff, flying in the air like downy snow!

Perhaps because we had a lot of rain this spring or the weather became very warm all at once, there seems to be more Cottonwood fluff than ever this season. It has been coating the ground in many areas and...

Covering my clothes as I sit in the parks watching my grandson play Little League baseball.

Like willows, cottonwoods have separate male and female trees. In late winter, the cottonwood’s reproductive season begins. The male and female trees each produce dangling catkins. Pollen from the male trees is transferred to the female pistillate catkins by wind.

Leaf buds appear on cottonwood trees in the late winter or early spring. The air becomes redolent with the scent of bud scale resin. Leaves appear, then later in the spring, the seeds ripen and capsules split on the female trees to release a snowfall of cotton-coated seeds.

Members of the Poplar family, cottonwoods were important to Native Americans who used all parts of the tree. The bark provided forage for horses and a bitter, medicinal tea for their owners. Sweet sprouts and inner bark were a food source for both humans and animals. The Cottonwood tree trunks became canoes.
Many parts of the cottonwood tree are medicinal. A compound called salicin, which is found in the leaves, buds, and bark of cottonwood, has been proven to lower fevers and reduce inflammation and pain. The resin has been used to waterproof boxes and baskets, and the bark has been used to make buckets for storing and carrying food. Cottonwood wood was important in the 1800s and 1900s for making paper, boxes and crates, packing material, sugar barrels, and kitchen utensils.

A cottonwood tree can grow 6 feet (2m) in one year! It can grow to be more than 100 feet tall and almost as wide. In the wild, cottonwood grows along rivers, ponds, and other bodies of water. It also thrives in floodplains and dry riverbeds, where infrequent rains transform dry land into waterways. 

Their rapid growth is also a negative, because the wood is brittle, leading to breaking branches.  As you can see in the photo above this Cottonwood tree was rotting from within and had to be cut or else it may have eventually collapsed and caused damage. 

An eagle pair was nurturing an eaglet this spring in Colorado's Standley Lake, and the eagles' nest was on a webcam, attracting thousands of viewers. One day the nest, indeed the tree, was gone! It turns out the Cottonwood tree supporting the nest split in half and the tree and nest fell. Sadly, the eaglet did not survive, but happily, the Eagle pair made a new nest on another tree and there is hope new eaglets will hatch.

The Cottonwood tree is an asset in wildlife areas where its hollow trunk serves as shelter while the twigs and bark provide food. Beavers use cottonwood for food and building materials. Deer eat leaves and twigs. Native butterflies, including the larvae of western tiger swallowtail, Lorquin’s admiral, Persius duskywing, and many kinds of moths, feed on cottonwood. Cottonwood resin is called “bee glue” because bees gather it to seal up their hives to protect them from invading insects and microbes. It is an ingredient in propolis.  Roosting turkeys eagles and other birds live in them.

In autumn the Cottonwood tree's leaves turn golden yellow and add beauty to the fall.

One of the most amazing Cottonwood trees I've come across since moving to Colorado was at the Royal  Gorge Route Railroad! Look at the size of its trunk! We could not get the entire tree in the camera lens it was so very tall.  If you like to read about this very scenic train ride click here.

Wishing everyone a Happy First Day of Summer and a Happy Fathers' Day!

You can also find me on

Instagram Twitter Facebook 

Pinterest