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Image Title: Buds of yellow buckeye (Aesculus flava, Sapindaceae)
Image Credit: Omar R. Lopez, University of Wisconsin
AJB Editor: Judy Jernstedt, University of California - Davis
Intended End User: Teacher, Student
License Details: BSA - Terms for Image Use
Copyright held by: Omar R. Lopez, BSA
Date Created: 11/1/2009
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About the Image

Buds of yellow buckeye (Aesculus flava, Sapindaceae) showing expanding new leaves under an open canopy in early spring (ca. 15 March) Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee, USA. Yellow buckeye is the earliest tree species to produce a flush of new leaves in the southern Appalachians. Early leaf emergence increases light capture before canopy closure and may provide a substantial “spring carbon subsidy” to saplings and permit them to persist in microsites that are densely shaded in midsummer. Leaf phenology appears to be an important determinant of shade tolerance and ecological distribution across a number of southern Appalachian trees, with early-leafing, shade-tolerant species dominant on mesic sites.

For further detail: see Lopez et al.—Leaf phenology in relation to canopy closure in southern Appalachian trees, American Journal of Botany, Volume 95, Issue 11, pages 1395–1407, http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/content/short/95/11/1395.

National Science Foundation  Development Supported by the National Science Foundation