Q: I have a hackberry tree that has started to grow in the middle of a rose bush. The ground is dry, hard caliche. For the past three years, we have suffered through a drought. I appreciate any tree ...

Ms. Renkl is a contributing Opinion writer who reports from Nashville on flora, fauna, politics and culture in the American South. Hackberries are native to Alabama, where I grew up, but I was a child ...

Hackberry emperor butterflies take flight at the entrance to the Roth Trailhead at the University of Kansas Field Station. A crowd slowed traffic one recent morning on a road north of Lawrence, but it ...