Answer Man: Is crooked tree near James River Freeway a Native American 'marker' tree?

Steve Pokin
News-Leader

Answer Man: I'm curious about a crooked tree in the green area where a lane of southbound Glenstone Avenue becomes the entry to eastbound James River Freeway/Highway 60. Is this a native American "trail tree" or "trail marker tree"? — Eric Wells

Probably not, Eric.

In large part because the tree you mention does not appear to be big enough and old enough, says Eric Fuller, staff archaeologist and historian with Smallin Civil War Cave, in Ozark. 

At least, he says, it's not a native American marker tree.

For years, Fuller says, the green area where the tree is located was a homeless camp.

Answer Man: Is this crooked tree a Native American "marker" tree?

Fuller wonders — it's just a theory — if someone living there created a marker tree for other homeless people.

A marker tree can be created by bending a young sapling so it arches back to the ground. At some point, the tree will sprout a branch and grow vertically.

Native Americans did this to hardwood trees like oaks to mark major trails, water sources, caves and other places of shelter or abundant hunting grounds.

Turner Collins, a retired Evangel University biology professor, says the tree in question is definitely not a native American marker tree.

It is a hackberry tree, he says, sometimes called a sugarberry tree. You can tell by the peculiar "alligator"-looking bark.

(This identification was seconded by local landscaper Jeff Gabris. I had posted a photo of the tree on Facebook.)

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Storms often make trees crooked

Answer Man: Is it a Native American "marker" tree?

"It was definitely knocked over as a sapling — note the swollen area at the first 90-degree bend," Collins told me via email.

"This is the result of scar tissue formed after the damage. Secondly, if you look at the second bend, note that there is a 'knot' on the outer (lower) portion of the bend. 

"That scar is where the original trunk of the sapling was; it died and the original trunk fell off (note the small diameter of the knot). Then a tree branch took over and became the new trunk of the tree.

"... If the tree was not damaged by human activity, I would suspect that the current form of the tree is the result of the multiple ice storms we have experienced in the last 30-40 years."

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Trees often are damaged by storms and, as a result, mistaken for native American marker trees, says Michelle Bowe, a senior biology instructor at Missouri State University.

"If a branch falls on a younger tree, then the tree will actually try to grow around it," Bowe tells me. "In the ice storm of 2007, we had a lot of trees that came down on other trees." 

True native American marker trees date back to before Missouri became a state in 1821.

A black walnut tree with a circumference of 10 feet, 1 inch — located near Smallin Civil War Cave — is confidently believed to be a Native American marker tree, perhaps pointing to the cave.

A massive black walnut stands as a marker tree at Smallin Civil War Cave, likely bent into that shape by Osage Indians more than two centuries ago.

A ceremony was held at the cave in March 2018 in which members of the Osage Nation, a tribe that once inhabited and hunted in the Ozarks, dedicated a new marker tree.

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About 50 people — including 14 Osage Nation members from Oklahoma — watched the ceremony, which served to welcome the Osage back to the land they hunted for centuries.

Using feathers from a golden eagle to fan smoke from a small bowl of cedar charcoal and ceremonial tobacco Osage Nation tribal member Cameron Pratt leads a prayer during a dedication of a new "marker tree" at Smallin Civil War Cave in Ozark On Thursday, March 29, 2018.

Keep those questions coming. Send them to The Answer Man at 417-836-1253, spokin@gannett.com, on Twitter @stevepokinNL or by mail to 651 Boonville Ave., Springfield, MO 65806.