trees
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Solvitur Ambulando
“And all the leaves on the trees are falling,” this time of year, some of them enormous. My friend and fellow nature blogger Melissa of Out Walking the Dog sent me a photo the other day of a very large face-covering leaf I thought might be American Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis). The very next day I…
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Liquidambar
I did a double-take over these. They are similar to the pods of the American Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua):but smaller and with much longer points; these are evidently persistent styles. (The pods look rather Goth after they have opened up and dried out.) Also, the leaves are three-lobed: Our Sweetgum has five to seven lobes:So at…
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Green-Wood Harvest
Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa).Three different hickories, genus Carya. Bitternut, Mockernut, Shagbark? Bulllfrog tadpoles (Rana catesbeiana) were still to be seen swimming. A single Common Green Darner was flying. There was also a bee of some kind passing by. Palm Warbler (Dendroica palmarum).A field of Black Walnuts (Juglans nigra): these were thudderdudduding down in the wind;…
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Ode to the American Chestnut
These non-blight-resistant trees were transplanted 9 years ago. Read more about them in my earlier post.
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Coppicing
Two kinds of woodlands seen along the Dartmoor Way: A conifer plantation, planted mid-last century, looking rather majestic but also, well, rather — although hardly all — sterile. Houndtor Woods, a Woodlands Trust area near Manaton.Trees of many trunks in a hardwood forest, looking deeply lush with its attendant mosses and other understory plants. A…
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300 Year Old Tulip Tree
At the northern end of Clove Lakes Park in Staten Island is a Tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera) said to be 300 years old. I would not say it is extraordinarily tall, but it certainly is large-boled. That head on the right is a child’s, three others are hidden behind the tree. Tuliptrees can be the tallest…
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Juneberry
The Juneberries (Amelanchier sp.) are nearly ripe, and that means the birds are starting to devour them.A Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum). Unexpected. Later I found four in a tree on the mezzanine that is Squib Park. Here’s one of these crested beauties:
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Sassy
Sassafras, as you may know, is one of those unusual native trees that has variable leaf shapes. Three leaf types show up on the same tree: unlobed, single lobed, or double-lobed. These Sassafras albidum at Brooklyn Bridge Park all seem to leaf-out initially with the longish oval unlobed leaves, the lobed mitteny ones coming with…
Backyard and Beyond 