Spring 5: Happy Easter!

Yup, I found time to check up on Spring even Easter weekend--the dogs need to walk, anyway.

Although nothing seems to be happening with the red maple flowers after a week of blooming, if you look closely you can see the tiny green "wings" just peeking out from the petals.  These will grow and mature into the winged seeds by which maples give their offspring a fighting chance at survival--carried out of the shade of the mother tree by the wind.  

Meanwhile, here is progress in some other species.  

 

Andromeda is an ornamental shrub of Japanese origin.

 

Vinca is my nemesis--but it does have pretty flowers, curse it!

 Paper birch is fairly uncommon around here; a native, but a more northern tree.

This beautiful big tree is in a suburban yard.  The dangling catkins bear flowers preparing to open. 

Spring 4: Animals can "spring," too!

My free period today was at 1pm--late enough, I decided, for the weather to be warm--so I ventured out in shirtsleeves, learning too late that the temperature was in the forties.  I walked almost entirely around the school, looking for new things, catching up with old.  Wandering in a little clearing, I was startled by the sudden crashing of a large animal through the woods a dozen yards away.  The poor thing--a deer, I assume--was as taken aback by my presence as I was by its.  In its haste it knocked down a little rotten tree, bounded across a path (a barely-seen blur of brown), and then splashed clumsily through a series of little vernal ponds.  No photo, of course.  

Certainly deer do pass through parts of Brockton and may even live in the wilder parts, but I somehow never imagined seeing one at school.  Probably because I am seldom there without a few dozen kids accompanying me.  

 

This rotted old birch tree made a lot of noise when the deer knocked it over.

 

The male flower are beginning to fall from some trees; their lives are nearly over.

This image is clear enough for you to see a little of the history of this tree: 

 three seasons of growth, marked not only by changes in the color of the twig segments,

but also scars encircling the twig where it ended the summer before.

(Such a scar is clear between the buds just left of the flowers.)

 

I thought this was another alder, but the fuzzy male catkins now whisper, "willow."

 

This oak's buds have barely expanded yet.

 

The rose leaves are becoming big enough to be recognizable.

 

The velvet leaves of this common mullein (Verbascum thapsis) 

were probably already growing when there was still snow on the ground.

 

A couple of mystery plants; I'll probably be able to identify them in a few weeks.

 

I tend to ignore cultivated plants, but my wife's beloved lilacs are well along.

 

This pignut hickory is one of the trees I'm keeping a "professional" eye on

for the Nature's Notebook project of the National Phrenology Network.

Spring 3 A Wintry Interlude

The ground white with snow startled me this morning.  "Sleet" my wife corrected.  Even so, my mind and the flowers and bursting buds all agreed that it was spring.  But it was cold enough that much of the white stuff survived most of the day, even where sunlight reached.  What effect did this weather have on the flowers?

Sleet on the ground set off the little white pines and hairy cap moss to advantage.

Apparently no harm done.

 

 

Silverberry leaves continue to expand.

 Although a few red maple trees had  flowers scattered beneath them, 

I suspect these flowers were "done" and discarded by the tree, rather than fallen victim to the weather.

 

 

Forsythia is prized for its cheerful, early flowering habit.

This one at the high school is "escaped from cultivation."

 Norway maples are just getting into the act--about a week behind red maple.  The big tree in my backyard has most flower buds just beginning to break, and about 5% open with open flowers.

This is the red maple whose debut I missed.

Maples flower before the leaves emerge.  Specialized flower buds produce only flowers.  In red maple, a single leaf bud is surrounded by between one and five flower buds, each of which produces five flowers.  The leaf bud (pink like the flower buds) is just visible in the center of the flower buds, in line with the twig.

I have long been acquainted with red maple for many years, but I am only coming to know it by close observations such as these.  Thoreau said, "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."

Spring 2 A Blustery Day

It rained today, a blustery day.  I took these during a lull in the rain, though not the wind.  All are around the high school grounds. 

 Roses by the pond are leafing out, well-ahead of any trees I've seen.

 

Yesterday's alder catkins are draggled in today's rain.

 

The swamp behind the school has a nice tangle of  willow.

Silverberry is an exotic, and sometimes borders on invasive, but I have to admit I like it anyway.

The silvery mature foliage and berries make it look as if painted with a delicate brush.

 

White pine leaves last two years; it wears its year-old leaves through the winter, 

and buds new leaves in spring.  This tree's leaf buds aren't ready to break yet.

 

Hairy cap moss, looking like miniature trees, stays green year-round, giving it a head-start in spring.

 

A lot of the action in spring goes unnoticed because you'd have to look down.

This milfoil (aka yarrow) will produce large clusters of white flowers in summer.

Enjoy Spring With Me

At long last, after weeks of getting ready, things are popping out all over.  I had been watching the red maple buds redden and expand, then I was distracted for a few days.  Today they are all in full bloom.  I shouldn't have blinked!  I walked around at the high school for awhile today, discovering alder flowers blowing in the wind.  The buds of the Norway maples are huge: they, too, will bloom in a few days time.  In the coming days, I plan to keep up with the changes as best I can.  

 

Long catkins blowing like flags from this alder are clusters of male flowers.

They are shedding pollen to be carried by wind to female flowers.

(Male and female flowers are borne on the same tree, though they generally cross with other trees.)

 

Very windy day today.

 

Cluster of red maple male flowers, showing the long, yellowish stamens that produce the pollen.

 

Female red maple flowers; the stigmas that dangle like antennae will receive the wind-blown pollen.

Their flowers are small but many, making red maples easy to pick out beside the highway right now.

Red maples in the wind.

We love the small willows that are nicknamed "pussy willows."