trees
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Autumn in Prospect Park
The natural world, our world, changes both subtly and radically. This is why there is an inexhaustible source of material for this blog. Yesterday, in Prospect Park:The Upper Pool’s duckweed, emerald green in summer, has darkened.The glory of the northeast, the Sugar Maple, Acer saccharum, is in fine form, and deserves multiple views. Two different…
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Pin Oak
In June, I accidently uprooted a pin oak sapling in the Back 40. I was weeding wildly. Once I saw what I had done, I attempted to replant it. A couple of days later it was utterly overthrown, the work, I believe of a squirrel sapper. But then, in another pot, I noticed another. Both…
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Spilt Seeds
Cones and seeds of a Japanese-Cedar, Cryptomeria japonica, an exotic planted in the Victorian necropolis of Green-Wood. The seeds are about 5mm long. When I brought the little cones home they were bright green and very tight. But, like pinecones, they bloomed in the apartment, releasing their cargo when jostled.
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Any port in a storm
On the side of the Barge Music barge, a friendly old hull, a tenacious plant. Soil, bah, who needs it? Although this may have reached the limit of it’s improbability. Methinks it’s our old friend Paulownia tomentosa, the weed that becomes a tree.
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Bean Tree
One of those trees with too many names: Pagoda tree, Sophora, Chinese scholartree. Styphnolobium japonicum, a common street tree in the city. A member, you will not be surprised to hear, of the legume family. The small black bean-like seeds will soon be littering the sidewalks.
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Nuts! Walnuts
This is the fruit of the Black walnut, Juglans nigra. Edible, but hard to extract, since first you have to get through this husk, which stains you yellowish green. It was in fact once used as a dye. Then, once the flesh is gone (squirrels will sometimes help you) you are presented with the hard…
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The future
To be honest, until fairly recently I thought buds grew in the spring. In fact they are produced in the later summer and early fall. They winter over, cold-hardy, then burst forth unraveling the spring. These are particularly large examples, approaching an inch in length, but many are much smaller and harder to see. Above…
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Nuts! Kentucky Coffeetree
The Kentucky Coffeetree, Gymnocladus diocius, produces a pod that usually gets three times as big as this and stays on the tree through the winter. This developing one was probably downed by the wind.A larger one wrenched opened by a mammal (me, duh!). The thumbnail-sized seeds within were sometimes used, after roasting, as a coffee…
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Nuts! Hazel
Exotic and glorious, the Turkish hazel, Corylus corlurna. I’ve seen them in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, but this one I found in Green-Wood. Sibley notes that this species is used as rootstock for commercial hazelnut production. (I love hazelnuts, particularly when drowned in chocolate.)
Backyard and Beyond 