trees
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Hickory Wind
Incoming! The hickory nuts were falling the other day. The big ones and the little ones. This is a Bitternut (Carya cordiformis), at least according to its label, and the nuts, the smallest below, certainly look right for the species. These ricocheted and caromed off branches as they fell, a subtle drumming (I mean, for…
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Fall?
Well, they fell, but they were the wrong color. The long lasting warmth seems to have kept many of the leaves going. Then a cold snap came. Ginkgo leaves usually turn a gorgeous yellow in the fall. Sassafras leaves should range from yellow to bright red. Sure, plenty of leaves have turned, but boy, this…
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This is just to say
I have eaten the persimmon that was on the ground and which you were probably saving for the opossum Forgive me it was delicious so sweet and so cold (with apologies to William Carlos Williams) Diospyros virginiana. Said in most accounts to only be palatable after the first frost. Well, it got cold. And, oh,…
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Franklinia BK
I discovered recently that Green-Wood Cemetery has a couple of Franklin Trees (Franklinia alatamaha). One may be the largest specimen in the country. But don’t get too carried away: this is not a giant species. This one might be all of 20 feet tall. It sure does have fine autumnal foliage, though. Windfall fruit and…
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Hickory Yellow
Traditionally, red leaves get most of the glory in the fall*, but don’t forget the yellows of beeches and hickories in the sunshine. A sight on the Jerome Wetlands Trail in Van Cortlandt Park: giant and youngsters of different Carya species. (Reproduced a little too orange above by the phone camera, though.)This image, with a…
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Ah, nuts!
“Filbert? Filbert? Where is that boy?”Turkish filbert or hazelnut (Corylus colurna). Shell and two halves of another. The frilly husk, or bristly involucre to the hort pros, of the nut dries out to a gnarly, tentacled beauty. I was late this year and found only two twisted, nut-less examples under this Green-Wood tree, so here’s…
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Galls
You may know of my fascination with galls, the structures created by plants in response to insects. In the Botanisk Have in Copenhagen and in the Alnapsparken at Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet, the Swedish agricultural college, I found these lovely knopper oak galls. They were growing on acorns of Quercus robur, the great oak of Europe, which…
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In Sweden
I particularly wanted to see some sloes, the marble-sized drupes of the blackthorn (Prunus spinosa). My walking stick, which saw me around Dartmoor, is made from the storied wood of this shrubby, hedgy, sometimes-tree. There’s much legend associated with this species; and (black) magic, like, for instance, how they find a long straight piece for…
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North Woods
We were in Skåne, Sweden’s southern-most county, largely flat and agricultural. But there were certainly pockets of woodlands.And mushrooms.And the fabled Röd flugsvamp (Amanita muscaria), which the Vikings used to get up and go… berserk in the morning.
Backyard and Beyond 