trees
-
Forecast: Cottonwood Flurries
Eastern Cottonwoods (Populus deltoides) pods are peeling back and letting rip, launching kerjillions of seeds on the wind.This is why they call them “cottonwood.”And piled up like snow. Photos above from Brooklyn Bridge Park. Photo below from Broad Channel:Stand down-wind of one.
-
Premature Juneberries
Some of the local Amelanchier (a.k.a. Shadblow, Serviceberry, etc.) berries are purple-ripe. Others are coming along fast:Gowanus street top, Brooklyn Bridge Park bottom.
-
Galls and Crane Fly
A two-fer in this shot of a Witch Hazel leaf:This is a boom year for the Witch Hazel Cone Gall-maker (Hormaphis hamamelidis), an aphid. Read more about these tiny insects and how they force the American Witch-Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) to create these protective cone forms around their young. For more about the endlessly fascinating galls…
-
Mother’s Day Bouquet (Living Flowers)
Some flowers for my mother, who passed a decade ago, and all the other mothers out there. Paulownia tormentosa is in bloom. Rich, heady perfume. Look to your empty lots, backyards, and canal bridges.Star-of-Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum) is another escapee from the reservation. A native of Europe, this Lily family member has basal leaves that are…
-
On Nantucket
Going to Nantucket is like going two weeks back into the past. Spring comes a little later there, even in this year of early spring. Although just a touch more north of us here in NYC, the island is thirty miles off-shore and surrounded by an ocean holding onto its cold. The Japanese Flowering Cherries…
-
Devil’s Walkingstick
What a great name, and perfectly understandable when you get a look at the young shoots and stems. Aralia spinosa is a native understory shrub, sometimes a small tree, of the East Coast, particularly the South. You can find it in all the boroughs; this patch was along the north end of the loop around…
-
Butterflies, Butterfly-Shaped
American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis). Very similar to the Painted Lady (V. cardui), which, like the Monarch (Danaus plexippus), is migratory. Saw my first Monarch as well (last year I noted my first at the end of June); the milkweeds, which Monarchs are so associated with, were only three-four inches out of the ground. I’m using…
-
-
Elm Fruit
American Elm (Ulmus americana). Typically given their druthers, Amerian Elm will take the classic vase shape that made it such a popular park tree before Dutch Elm Disease (a beetle-vectored fungus) killed off so many of them. There are still mighty elms to be seen, though. Prospect Park’s most magnificent example, on the Long Meadow,…
-
Willow, Weep
The “weeping willow” is one of those trees most of us can identify. Often associated with water bodies, it is distinctive. In my experience, the East Village is a good place to find them, often dominating community gardens. Columbia St. (above) and Red Hook (below) are good places to spot them in Brooklyn. All of…
Backyard and Beyond 