Trees & Shrubs of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Notes: Kentucky Coffeetree first made it's appearance in the Garden in May 1909 when Eloise Butler planted some selections received from the Park Board. Martha Crone planted 36 small ones in 1934 that had been acquired the previous fall and heeled in for the winter. Additional plants came in 1949. A number of these still are growing in the Woodland Garden in the vicinity of Guidebook Station 10 and also along Violet Way. It is native to Minnesota in some south central counties and several counties in the SE near the Mississippi River. In North America it is found from the central plains states eastward, absent in NH, FL, VT and LA. In Canada it is only known in Ontario. In all places, wild populations in modern times are extremely rare.

Rarity: Wild populations were not found in Hennepin County where the Garden is located but it has been extensively planted in private and public landscapes. In the wild today in Minnesota it's habitat is becoming critical and the plant is now listed on the Minnesota DNR "Special Concern" list.

In 1975 in The Friends Newsletter, The Fringed Gentian™, Mr. Gordon Morrison, Coordinator of Environment Education for the Minneapolis Park Board wrote this:
“Over the last century the Park Board has planted a number of these interesting trees throughout the city. Most parks have at least one of them. The largest of these are two Kentucky Coffeetrees growing on either side of Minnehaha Creek just upstream from the point where Lake Nokomis flows into the creek. They are very slow growing here in the North. They may grow quite rapidly their first four or five years but then slow down to an almost unperceivable growth rate from then on. Those two near Lake Nokomis are only about one and a half feet in diameter though they are probably as much as seventy years old. Presumably those planted in the garden were planted many decades ago, perhaps by Miss Butler.”

Substitute for Coffee: It was not a good tasting beverage. Botanist Francois Michaux (Ref. #26b) wrote, in his North American Silva of 1819: "The name of Coffee Tree was given to this vegetable by the early emigrants to Kentucky and Tennessee, who hoped to find in its seeds a substitute for coffee; but the small number of persons who made the experiment abandoned it, as soon as it became easy to obtain from the seaports the coffee of the West Indies." He further writes: "The Coffee Tree was sent to France more than 50 years since. It thrives in the environs of Paris, where there are trees that exceed 40 feet in height, but it does not yield fruit, and is multiplied only be shoots obtained by digging trenches round the old trees. The divided roots produce shoots 2 or 4 feet long, the first year. The young trees are sought, on account of their beautiful foliage, for the embellishment of parks and pictoresque gardens."

My Kentucky Coffeetree

All that is required to grow the tree is a seed, space and patience - especially the latter. Wait till Spring and find one of the seed pods that has overwintered on the tree or on the ground below the tree. The seeds will be ready to germinate. There are usually 4 to 6 seeds per pod embedded in a sticky pulp. Most critters avoid eating the seed as they contain a toxic alkaloid called cystisine, so its not hard to find pods. Find an open space where the tree has room to grow. The 3/4 inch seed, should be scarified and just-covered with soil, watered and put a little fence around it. I started mine in a small pot, which requires planting in the ground by Autumn or the root development will be hindered.

Now comes the patience part. Some say the tree is fast growing at first then it slows down; commentary that is dependent on the interpretation of what's fast and what's slow. In Spring 2018 my tree had been in the ground six years and it was seven feet high. It looked nice when it had those large compound Summer leaves but after leaf-fall it was just a stick, that is, until year six when I saw near the top of the stick a short stub. Finally a branch! Yes, in year six several leaves developed on the stub and now it begin to look like a real tree - sometime - as after leaf-fall I still had a stick, but with a stub near the top below the new growth that occurred that year. In year seven it developed two more stubs and the first stub had several leaves. New growth at the top was almost 3 feet, so now it is 10 feet high at the end of 2019. Now into the future! I wonder what sex it is - will it be female and have fragrant flowers and maybe get pollinated from some male in a near-by park and make seeds? or will it be male and just have flowers? I will never know. Most deciduous trees require decades before flowering and bearing fruit. Maybe the next steward of my plot of land will find out - or the person after that - but hopefully the tree will survive and add another touch of interest to the landscape. Meanwhile, I've started two more from seed.