Recent high winds brought down about 2 dozen pods. The pods are big with 2 to 4 fat seeds inside the size of a nickle. The pods have a sticky sweet saplike substance inside that is somewhat toxic I believe. Here is a link that might be useful: ricjo22's exchange list

This tree colonizes. COLONIZES. That means that it sprouts from its roots up to at least 30 ft. from the trunk & all over the stump after you cut it down. Here in the Willamette Valley it seems impossible to kill or prevent a jungle of it. It takes a few years - but think ahead, & find how it grows in your area before making my mistake.

There's the remains of a personal arboretum in Catonsville, and I picked up coffee bean seeds there a few years ago. I didn't know what they were so brought them home to id them! If that's close enough for you, google 'Lurman Woodland Theatre' in Catonsville. There's an open air concert series held in this wooded area in the summer and there will be a sign marking the road. It's either off of Mellor Ave or off of Bloomsbury Ave. The Lurman site should give directions. Turn down the road with the Lurman sign and just park in the little lot and start walking around. It's basically a public park, so you can park and wander and pick up seeds. Many of the trees there are labeled too.

Seed grown KCT will be the species with any of its potential variations, and not an exact, genetic duplicate of the parent. To make a duplicate, you'd need to vegetatively propagate a piece of original parent tissue. To prune for a single leader trunk (one which does not branch until the canopy, remove lower limbs/branches back to the main trunk, up to 50% of the tree's total height, once per year, preferably prior to new Spring growth. If you missed that "best" time, calculate how it was then and remove the same limbs/branches. Do this only once per year in order to give the tree an opportunity to restore energy to the roots prior to the next cutting. (You can remove a minor branch here or there at other times without consequence.) There are a couple of reason why to remove the lower branches as opposed to letting them do and doing it much later. Removed when young, the cut is minor and heals quickly Some lower limbs will take a skyward turn and quickly begin competing with the central lead, as secondary one. In doing this they will develop their own section of canopy. Removing them later can take a big chunk out of the overall canopy, disfiguring it and making recovery long, or impossible, depending on the degree of severity. Removing the branch as soon as possible works toward regaining the ground space below the tree for human activities. Removing growth causes a spurt of growth as the tree's roots try to re-balance the root/canopy-energy equation. In spite of the growth removed coming from the bottom of the canopy, the growth returning on account of it will most likely be in the upper portion of the tree. Thus, the tree grows taller, faster. If one removes lower branching and foliage just prior the beginning of Spring growth -- to a 50% trunk/50% canopy proportion -- the tree will have the entire season to put on new growth. What starts as a 50/50 proportion will end the season more like 60% canopy to 40% trunk, which is a handsome proportion for a tree to have through the remainder of the year. Since the Spring growth is sudden and rapid, it is very little time before the tree regains a 60% canopy. Obviously, as the tree grows over the years, there comes a time when the permanent bottom of the canopy has been reached and there is no longer a need to keep raising it. Then the tree is free to grow as high as its genetics will allow while every year gaining a greater portion of canopy relative to trunk height.