Featured Expert
Shirley Mah Kooyman
Adult Education Manager
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
Chanhassen, MN

Q: I understand there's a cork tree that grows in Minnesota. Are corks for wine bottles made from this tree?

A: Well, that's an interesting question. We do have a tree that is a very nice ornamental tree for Minnesota. It's the Phellodendron amurense. This is the bark - look how interesting the bark is. It is corky, because if you put your thumbnail in there, it's spongy. Unfortunately, most of the cork that is produced for wine bottles really comes from an oak tree that is grown in the Mediterranean, and it is not the Phellodendron that we get our corks from, but in Russia, they do harvest the bark and make corks from it. And so that's why the common name, the Amur cork tree. I want to talk a little about the name that people will usually encounter - the amurense, amurenses, anything that has amur in it is going to be hardy in Minnesota because the Amur River is in northern China, and that separates Siberia from China. Plants are very hardy up there, and so we have plants like the Amur chokecherry that is hardy in Minnesota, the Amur maple, and of course we have this Amur cork tree.


images: amur cork tree | bark | bark

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Last updated: Tuesday, February 01, 2005