Subtle Beauties of Hackberry Trees

     There is nothing special about the appearance of hackberry trees.  And they seldom are planted as ornamental on lawns.  But this plain kind of tree has its beauties, in the animals that depend on it for food and shelter. 
     Hackberries range from New England south to Georgia and Texas, but nowhere are they common, living mostly as scattered individuals.  They do, however, prefer moist, rich soil, which my home area, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, has.  This type of tree is present in Lancaster County, mostly on floodplains along creeks and streams, and in hedgerows between fields.
     The caterpillars of two kinds of butterflies eat the leaves of hackberries.  They include the larvae of hackberry butterflies and the young of common snout butterflies.  Hackberry butterfly larvae are gregarious, feeding together in groups.  They are striped lengthwise with green, brown and white to blend into their surroundings in the trees.  And they have two spiney horns on the rear of their heads to discourage predation from birds and other critters.  Hackberry larvae overwinter in the ground when partly grown and emerge next spring to continue growing, pupate and emerge as adult butterflies ready to consume flower nectar and the juice of rotting fruit, and reproduce.
     Hackberry butterflies are mostly tawny-brown with white spots and black spots on their wings.  Their wing span is a little over two inches.
     The caterpillars of common snout butterflies also consume the foliage of hackberries.  They are green with yellow stripes for camouflage among the tree leaves.  Adult snouts are mostly brown, which camouflages them, and have a two inch wing span.  They are called that peculiar name because each one has two long, labial palps that look like a nose on the front of the head.
     Hackberry trees produce berry-like fruit wrapped in dark skin.  Though small and not attractive, those fruits are ingested by mice, eastern chipmunks and gray squirrels.  Those rodents eat the pulp and the seeds, killing the embryo inside each berry.
     But a variety of birds, including wintering American robins, eastern bluebirds, cedar waxwings, starlings, yellow-rumped warblers and other species, ingest the fruits, digest their pulp, but pass many of the seeds intact across the countryside as they flit from place to place.  Birds don't have teeth to chew the seeds.  Some of those seeds land in good soil and grow into young hackberry trees.  By spreading the intact seeds in their droppings, those birds ensure a future food supply for themselves and other critters.               
     Hackberry trees may not be particularly attractive in themselves, but they sustain the beauties of the creatures that consume their foliage and fruits.  And the birds, in turn, plant future crops of the trees that will eventually produce food for caterpillars, rodents and birds.