Mimosa trees stand out in the midwestern landscape. It looks fragile and delicate, and when in bloom exotic. It is also one of our oldest invasive trees, brought to New England for purely ornamental reasons in about 1745. Over two hundred and fifty years later, Mimosa’s are naturalized throughout the eastern and southern United States as an ornamental and as an invasive species along roadsides and other disturbed places. Officially, named the Persia Silk Tree, as far as I know, it is only called a mimosa in my area.
I have a confession to make —this is possibly my favorite tree species. Every time I look at a wooded hillside, I’m searching for these pink puffs and fern-like leaves.
When I was a little girl, I had a mimosa tree outside my window. I loved the parts that many landscapers hate, surface roots and extremely flexible branches, puffy flowers and tough seed pods. Unfortunately those branches have a tendency to break in storms or under snow, but as a small child it took more force than I could imagine. It was perfect for making a garden hose sprinkler on a hot summer day. I never grew tired of tickling those leaves to watch the curl (below). The seed pods are one of the first things I can remember dissecting out of curiosity.
Long considered invasive, there are few places in the mid-Mississippi valley, that I know of, where I would say the are crowding out native trees. It is naturalized; it’s not going anywhere, so there really isn’t a reason to try to eradicate it. Of all the invasive species that Europeans brought to this continent throughout our colonial period this one seems pretty mild. The biologist in me is sorely tempted to climb on a soapbox with a rant on the relationship between humans and the evolution of other species, but I will spare you.
As I gave known the mimosa trees a passing glance this winter, they do look so fragile. All that was left from last year were a few seed pods stubbornly hanging on. The tree outside my childhood window is long gone, victim of a plumbing repair years ago. I hope the current COVID-19 lock-down is over before I miss the whole spring.
Metamorphosis 