Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Fagales > Betulaceae > Alnus > Alnus incana

Alnus incana (gray alder; speckled alder; thinleaf alder)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Alnus incana (grey alder or speckled alder) is a species of alder with a wide range across the cooler parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
View Wikipedia Record: Alnus incana

Infraspecies

Alnus incana incana
Alnus incana kolaensis
Alnus incana rugosa (speckled alder) (Attributes)
Alnus incana tenuifolia (mountain alder) (Attributes)
Alnus incana var. incana
Alnus tenuifolia var. tenuifolia

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  High
Screening - Summer [2]  Moderate
Screening - Winter [2]  Porous
Bloom Period [2]  Spring
Drought Tolerance [2]  Low
Fire Tolerance [2]  High
Flower Type [3]  Monoecious
Frost Free Days [2]  3 months 10 days
Fruit/Seed Abundance [2]  Low
Fruit/Seed Begin [2]  Spring
Fruit/Seed End [2]  Summer
Growth Form [2]  Thicket Forming
Growth Period [2]  Spring, Summer
Growth Rate [2]  Rapid
Leaf Type [3]  Deciduous
Lifespan [4]  Perennial
Pollinators [3]  Wind
Propagation [2]  Bare Root, Container, Seed
Root Depth [2]  24 inches (61 cm)
Seed Spread Rate [2]  Slow
Seed Vigor [2]  Low
Seeds Per [2]  1084248 / lb (2390359 / kg)
Shape/Orientation [2]  Erect
Specific Gravity [6]  0.439
Structure [3]  Tree
Usage [3]  This species fixes atmospheric nitrogen and is also tolerant of polluted soils, it can be used for land reclamation, especially on coal tips; This is an excellent pioneer species for re-establishing woodlands on disused farmland, difficult sites etc. Its fast rate of growth means that it quickly provides sheltered conditions to allow more permanent woodland trees to become established. In addition, bacteria on the roots fix atmospheric nitrogen - whilst this enables the tree to grow well in quite poor soils it also makes some of this nitrogen available to other plants growing nearby. Alder trees also have a heavy leaf canopy and when the leaves fall in the autumn they help to build up the humus content of the soil. Alder seedlings do not compete well in shady woodland conditions and so this species gradually dies out as the other trees become established; The bark and the fruits contain up to 20% tannin; Wood - light, soft, fairly elastic, easy to split. Used for clogs, bowls, woodcuts etc. Much valued by cabinet makers;
Vegetative Spread Rate [2]  Slow
Height [3]  59 feet (18 m)
Width [3]  16.4 feet (5 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [2]  USDA Zone: 3 Low Temperature: -40 F° (-40 C°) → -30 F° (-34.4 C°)
Light Preference [5]  Mixed Sun/Shade
Soil Acidity [5]  Moderate Acid
Soil Fertility [5]  Mostly Infertile
Soil Moisture [5]  Damp
Water Use [2]  High
Foliage Color [2]  Green
Fruit Color [2]  Brown
View Plants For A Future Record : Alnus incana

Protected Areas

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Melampsoridium betulinum (Birch Rust)[8]
Melampsoridium hiratsukanum[8]
Prociphilus tessellatus (woolly alder aphid)[8]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 3Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 4PLANTATT - Attributes of British and Irish Plants: Status, Size, Life History, Geography and Habitats, M. O. Hill, C. D. Preston & D. B. Roy, Biological Records Centre, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (2004)
♦ 5ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 6Chave J, Coomes D, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Swenson NG, Zanne AE (2009) Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Ecology Letters 12: 351-366. Zanne AE, Lopez-Gonzalez G, Coomes DA, Ilic J, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Miller RB, Swenson NG, Wiemann MC, Chave J (2009) Data from: Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Dryad Digital Repository.
♦ 7Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 8Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 9HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 10Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 11New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Plant-SyNZ™ database
♦ 12Tamias minimus, B. J. Verts and Leslie N. Carraway, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 653, pp. 1–10 (2001)
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0