Apple Tree (Malus pumila)
Order: Rosales Average Lifespan: 100 years Height: 10-20 feet Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "In thin woods facing south many more ferns still are green than up here, and in a growing up field old apple trees still hold a lot of fruit, or soft orange-red, and one a brilliant red, like rose hips." - A Vermont Diary (1972), Collected Poems p. 108 |
Balsam Fir (abies balsamea)
Order: Pinales Average Lifespan: 90 years Height: 40-60 feet Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "Water boils, coffee scents the air and level light plunges among the layering boughs of a balsam fir and enflames its trunk." - In earliest morning (1972), Collected Poems p. 82 |
Bloodroot (sanguinaria canadensis)
Order: Ranunculales Average Lifespan: N/A (flowers live for 1-2 days) Height: 0.5-0.75 feet Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "The gulls are as dirty as peigons - and it's high time for crocuses, bloodroots, hepaticas and other nascent what-have-yous." - Thinness (1969), Collected Poems p. 21 |
Common Elderberry (sambucus canadensis)
Order: Dipsacales Average Lifespan: 3-6 years Height: 6-13 feet Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "I thought the world as flat and very like an elderberry umbel full of round juicy people winking and waving..." - Jelly Jelly (1977), Collected Poems p. 63 |
American Elm (ulmus americana)
Order: Rosales Average Lifespan: 150-400 years Height: ~100 feet Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "There, where I dream of, the elms are gone... but the giant plane tree, last to leaf out, last to shed." - Beaded Balustrade (1985), Collected Poems p. 323 |
Fireweed (chamaenerion angustifolium)
Order: Myrtales Average Lifespan: Varies Height: 3-7 feet Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "A day like a gull passing with a slow flapping of wings in a kind of lope, without breeze enough to shake loose the last of the fireweed flowers." - Buried at Springs (1969), Collected Poems p. 44 |
Weeping Forsythia (forsythia suspensa)
Order: Lamiales Average Lifespan: 20-50 years Height: 6-10 feet Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "Happy Name Day, Blue Jay, staggering on slow-up wings into the shrunk into itself from cold forsythia snarl." - The Crystal Lithium (1972), Collected Poems p. 117 |
Flowering Grass/Freesia (freesia laxa)
Order: Asparagales Average Lifespan: 2 years Height: 1 ft. Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "The daffodils, the heather and the freesias all speak to me. I speak back, like St. Francis and the wolf of Gubbio." - What (1980), Collected Poems p. 258 |
Field Goldenrod (solidago nemoralis)
Order: Asterales Average Lifespan: Varies Height: 0.5-2.5 feet Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "October, I wish it were the fall. Falling leaves, glittering blue skies, in the country, late goldenrod and asters..." - The Morning of the Poem (1980), Collected Poems p. 297-298 |
Common Juniper (juniperus communis)
Order: Pinales Average Lifespan: 350-700 years Height: ~30 feet (mature) Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "A day subtle and suppressed in mounds of juniper enfolding scratchy pockets of shadow..." - Buried at Springs (1969), Collected Poems p. 43 |
Common Lilac (syringa vulgaris)
Order: Lamiales Average Lifespan: ~100 years Height: 20-23 feet Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "Jane, among fresh lilacs in her room, watched December, in brown with furs, turn on lights until the city trembled like a tree in which wind moves." - Looking Forward to See Jane Real Soon (1977), Collected Poems p. 73 |
Wild Lupine (lupinus perennis)
Order: Fabales Average Lifespan: 1-2 years Height: 8-24 inches Conservation Status: Threatened Poetical Reference: "The way to the bog through the bog to the road from the south to the north by the silver stile over no fence to the garden by the apples to the gate to the lupines by the well to the road and so home to lunch." - The Cenotaph (1972), Collected Poems p. 96 |
Mountain Maple (acer spicatum)
Order: Sapindales Average Lifespan: 40-50 years Height: 10-25 feet Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "The maples ripen. Apples come home crisp in bags. This pear tastes good. It rains lightly on the random leaf patterns." - October (1974), Collected Poems p. 181 |
Norway Spruce (picea abies)
Order: Pinales Average Lifespan: ~100 years Height: 100 feet Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "The giant Norway spruce from Podunk, its lower branches bound, this morning was reared into place at Rockefeller Center." - December (1969), Collected Poems p. 13 |