THE TAG ALDER

TAG ALDER SHRUB

TAG ALDER DORMANT MALE CATKINS

LAST YEAR'S FEMALE CONE

CONES AND CATKINS...GOOD WINTER IDENTIFICATION CHARACTERISTICS

Tuesday,  9:00 AM.  14 degrees F at the ferry dock, 12 on the back porch.Wind SW, with strong gusts.  The sky is mostly cloudy and overcast, the humidity 69% and the barometer is falling, now at 30.16".
   If I couldn't shoot a buck on Sunday, at least I could shoot some photos.  Alnus incana, the speckled alder, known mostly by the common name  "tag alder" in Wisconsin, is a large, vigorous shrub in the birch family.  It is found along streams, lake shores and wet roadside ditches.  It has relatively small, simple, birch-like toothed leaves, and numerous warty spots (speckles) on its smooth, dark brown bark, which also has horizontal lenticels similar to young birch bark.  Both male and female catkins are borne on the same tree, the former readily apparent when dormant during the winter.  The previous season's empty female "cones" remain on the tree during the winter and are also a good identification characteristic.
   Tag alder is native to northeastern Canada, New England and the upper Midwest.  Some authorities give it the species name rugosa.  There are five other alder species in North America, and a lot of confusing nomenclature.  Tag alder is very common in Wisconsin, and most hunters, fishermen and other outdoors folks are familiar with it.  Alder bark was used as an analgesic and astringent by American Indians, and is used similarly in European herbal medicine.
  The European black alder, Alnus glutinousa, tends to be much more tree-like, and has found some use as a city street tree.
   I should add that I use standard references for most of my botanical identification and description, mainly Gray's Manual of Botany, Gleason's New Britton and Brown Flora (eastern North America) and a handy little pocket guide, Otis' Michigan Trees.
   For herbal reference I use primarily Grieve's A Modern Herbal (Royal Horticultural Society), and Moerman's Native American Ethnobotany.  Of course I use the internet, primarily the UW's on-line WISFLORA, as well as the Freckman Herbarium, UW Steven's Point, and the USDA Forest Service plant information data base.
   Much of the verbal description and virtually all the photos are my own.