trees
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Oak Galls
The mighty oaks and their galls are an endless source of curiosity. This particular type, a hard, fruit-like structure, is created by a tiny wasp, which essentially irritated the tree into making them for their larva. Clever boots! The trees are Swamp White Oak (Q. bicolor), according to the Street Tree Map. (I’m waiting on…
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Hot February
Yesterday, in Green-Wood, some Cherries and a Red Maple were blooming already.Record-breaking temperatures raise the bar to the new normal. A nice review of climate change now. People, from the rotting orange head of the regime on down, can say it doesn’t exist; they can suppress research; intimidate scientists; but they can’t change the radical,…
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Twiggy
The twigs right now! The twigs! Green, red, orange, brown. Spring is coiled for the spring. This is our old friend Liriodendron tulipifera. Look at those leaf scars! The bundle scars, too, are nice and obvious. In the Native Flora in Winter course I just took at NYBG, some species’ bundle scars were damned hard…
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Rings
Just about the entire time I’ve lived in New York City. This was a big fat Red Oak. I will miss it. My birthday falls on Not My President’s Day. Perfect!
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Thoreau Thursday
The purple, duck-billed buds of Liriodendron tulipifera. These are just over 2cm long and were taken from some recent windfall branches. Thoreau seems to have become acquainted with “tulip trees” on Staten Island, where he lived from May-December of 1843, having gone there to tutor Ralph Waldo Emerson’s brother’s children. I read in one source…
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Barking Mad Monday
The distinctive bark of Beech (Fagus), its typical smoothness broken up by age.Hackberry (Celtis). On the young trees especially, these nobby, layered, butte-like protuberances are characteristic. The red hairs of a Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) vine find them a good place to anchor.This is a mature Carolina Silverbell (Halesia carolina).And this strange stuff is Fetid…
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Sourwood
The dried five-part fruits of Oxydendrum arboreum, fallen from the tree. This is a great tree for fall colors, both the leaves and the fruits. One guide I have says its range is from NJ south. There are a couple young ones in the Native Flora Garden at NYBG and a stellar oldster in the…
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Betula Lenticels
Lenticels are pores in the bark of trees (and some plants and some fruits) through which trees exchange gasses. Many lenticels are raised dots, but birches, like this Black (Betula lenta) have scar-like horizontal ones. There’s a danger with all these passages inside though; they can also be the route of disease. B. lenta is…
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Tuliptree
Remember that Tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera) we got such close-up views of back in the spring?This is what it looks like now.These “cone-like aggregates of samaras” as Core and Ammons put it in Woody Plants in Winter, persevere. The hypocrisy would gag a snake, but the Republicans are beyond any shame (and certainly any claim to…
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In Winter
The dried fruit capsule of the Horse-Chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum) is distinctively prickly. I just started a class on Native Flora in Winter at the New York Botanical Garden. I hope to share some of what I learn in the coming weeks. Let’s start with: the mints (Lamiaceae) are one of the easiest families to identify in…
Backyard and Beyond 