Musings: What's a Hazelwood anyway?

My property is surrounded by trees. Most of my neighborhood boasts beautiful old trees of every persuasion. Over the winter, my goal is for the kids and I to be able to identify the different trees that share our environment.

The street names in my area are all names of trees. Our street is 'Hazelwood Ave.', so I assumed 'hazelwood' was the name of a particular tree. Wrong. Here's the definition:

reddish-brown wood and lumber from heartwood of the sweet gum tree used to make furniture

So now I'm on a nature scavenger hunt. What is a Sweet Gum? Well, joke's on me. Here is a picture from an 19th century nature classification book:




It seems the sweet gum tree is the annoying variety that drops the 'pokey things' my kids complain about when running barefoot in our backyard. Here's a close-up of a 'pokey thing':

Sweet Gums are also called 'alligator trees' because their bark resembles the rough and deeply grained skin of that reptile. We have 2 of them in our backyard (sweet gums, not alligators), and though their leaves turn a brilliant red in the fall, the 'pokey things' just ruin it for me.

So, today's nature study (which proceeded from mama's curiosity about her street name) is that 'pokey things' come from the sweet gum tree, and hazelwood is the lumber extracted from a sweet gum for furniture. (Oh, and that my street is 'Hazelwood' because there are so many darn sweet gums rooted around the properties. Which leads me to wonder, why didn't they just name the street 'Sweet Gum Ave'????)

Here's a lovely poem my friend Angie found that somewhat redeems the 'pokey thing' aspect:

The Song of Wandering Aengus
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
~William Butler Yeats

If a tree that produces 'pokey things' can inspire such imagery, I suppose I can abide them for the time being. At least until next season when the "OUch!" and "OWie" song and dance begins once again in earnest.