trees
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Rockaway
Friends who live in the Rockaways showed us around last week. This barrier beach of a peninsula juts out of the soft underbelly of Queens as the sheltering arm of Jamaica Bay. It’s thickly settled on its eastern end, but Jacob Riis Beach and the Fort Tilden section of Gateway NRA provide some naturalist splendor.…
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Uneven Development
Forsythia blooming: the microclimate of a ESE-facing wall on Sydney Place intensifies the sun. Meanwhile, in Prospect Park:The trees bid their time.
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Early Spring Subtleties
Some tree species aren’t very showy with their flowers. They aren’t out to attract animals because they’re wind-pollinated; and they aren’t out to seduce gardeners with luscious blooms. So their beauty is subtle, but undeniable. This is some kind of elm species, near Prospect Park Lake.I was away for a week, and while I was,…
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Winter II
Maybe it was my peripatetic upbringing, but I didn’t know until fairly recently that trees carry their buds all through winter. I just assumed they appeared right before they opened up as the days grew longer and temperatures rose in the spring. This was another instance of my not actually seeing while I was looking.…
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Field Notes: Tuliptrees bloom
The tuliptrees are blooming. Liriodendron tulipifera, also known as the yellow-popular, is one of the tallest tree in North America, and definitely in our area. These two blooms are from Elizabeth’s Tuliptree in Nelly’s Lawn in Prospect Park. I think this is the only named tree in the park. It’s been much battered, losing major…
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Field Notes: Galls
Happy Arbor Day. Love the trees…like a gall… Galls are abnormal growths of plant material caused by the invasion of an alien entity, typically insects and mites. The gall wasps may be the most famous of the gall-forcing insects. Some galls are balls, some are nut-like, some are leaf-spiky — like the ones above, found…
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Natural Object: Cedar-Apple Rust
Many of us look to the stars hoping for new discoveries. Obviously, there’s plenty to find out there. But some people seem to think everything has already been done right down here. Ha! Last week I was on Nantucket Island, off the coast of Massachusetts. Thirty miles at sea, it’s a damp and very windy…
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Natural Object: Seeds
Mighty oaks from little acorns grow, but you know that. And the Giant sequoia, Sequoiadendron giganteum, of inland California — as distinct from the coastal redwoods, Sequoia sempervirens — comes from these little things. By volume, these Giants are the largest living thing on the planet. A superlative beast by any standard, in fact: can…
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Quince blooming in the rain
The local quince tree, a cultivar of Cydonia oblonga. This is not your average NYC street tree; it’s not even on the official street tree list. But there you go. It’s here, it’s blooming, and it usually fruits — smaller pomes than you see in the supermarket. Actually, you probably don’t see quince in the…
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Field Notes: In Prospect (plus haiku)
Willow, weep. Grackle, advance. Cocoon, open…. This is somewhat similar to the one I saw last week, but attached to a lamp post instead of suspended from a twig. Also, it’s darker. This one is just as big, though, just over an inch long, half or more wide. A big fat moth? What do you…
Backyard and Beyond 