Flowers and Plants

Trees

I had meant to get out of the office today. It’s not as cold as it was and it was mostly clear today but I was quite busy and didn’t get a chance. As the sun was going down late in the afternoon it lit up the trees outside my office and I watched the bird moving about. There were quite a few starlings in the tree tops and every now and then a large group of them would fly off or another large group would join them from somewhere else. This picture is just of trees with a few large, older trees that are growing just beyond the parking lot and then the smaller trees beyond in what was a field when I started working here.

African Violet (Saintpaulia ionantha)

It’s nice, in the colder months when nothing is blooming outside, to have a few houseplants that provide color in a more-monochrome time of year. African violets (generally cultivars derived from Saintpaulia ionantha) are a good choice. They are quite easy to grow, you can have a bunch in a relatively small space, and they produce beautiful, if small, flowers of white, pink, purple, and blue. This one, with a mottled purple flower, is a good example. Watered once or twice a week, it’s quite happy in our kitchen with a west-facing window.

Bok Choy

Our youth group met in an international market this evening before returning to our regular location for pizza and the bulk of the meeting. At the store, we looked at seafood. I took a few pictures (I know, can you believe it?) including this one of bok choy or Chinese cabbage, Brassica rapa subsp. chinensis). I bought a Spanish mackerel, filleted (my post for tomorrow will feature that, actually) and some oyster mushrooms. There was also a bin with turtles in it. I thought of posting a picture of them, but too many people would have thought of them as pets and we were in a grocery store.

Yellow Crab Apples

It was a dreary, rainy day today but it wasn’t actually raining when I had to walk over to another building for a meeting. As I often do, I took my camera with me and took some pictures of crab apples on a tree between the parking lot and pond below my building. I love crab apples and in general would probably favor them over flowering cherries as ornamental trees. If nothing else, they provide two seasons of interest although many of them may be fairly susceptible to rust and black spot. If you are shopping for a crab apple, disease resistance my be the first thing you want to look into. In terms of fruit, smaller might be better unless you don’t mind them dropping onto your lawn. I am personally partial to yellow fruit, as seen here.

Nutmeg

Most people are at least aware of nutmeg as a spice. It is the seed of Myristica fragrans, an evergreen tree indigenous to the Moluccas (or Spice Islands) of Indonesia and grown throughout the tropics of Asia and South America. Like all herbs and spices, it’s an aromatic that loses it’s aroma over time so you don’t want to buy more than you will use in a relatively short time. With nutmeg, buying whole seeds and grating it as needed extends its useful life considerably. The seed on top here has been grated down, showing a cross section of the internal structure of the seed.

Beech Forest

I love a good forest. I guess I’m particularly partial to temperate hardwood forests because that’s what I know best, although the southeast Alaska’s rain forest is pretty amazing, too. But we don’t have to look far to find small pockets of forest, even in our almost entirely suburban county. As the crow flies, this is about two thirds of a mile from our house. It’s not actually a deep, dark forest, certainly not a Mirkwood of Fangorn but it’s at the very least a ‘wood.’ I love the color of beech leaves in winter, particular in contrast to the pale grey of their bark.

Sycamore Leaf

I went for a short walk today, going through the woods and across the street to a small pond and back. I took some pictures of grass seeds and then stopped when I saw the light shining through this sycamore leaf. I love the bright yellow of the leaf and the dark brown of the veins. Sycamores are not really known for their spectacular fall color as their leaves often are brown by the time they fall but the leaves do often pass though yellow on their way to brown, as you can see.

Bradford Pear

The fall color continues to fade, but there are still some good instances here and there. The Bradford pears are notable for their fall color and in this picture I think you can see why. The Bradford pear is a cultivar of Pyrus calleryana, native to China and Vietnam. When they were beginning to be used, they were the only pear variety around so they didn’t set fruit but now there is enough variation in them that they pretty much all do. They do make a good show but I wouldn’t really recommend them in most situations. There are much better choices, anyway.

Oriental Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus)

Oriental or Asiatic bittersweet, Celastrus orbiculatus, is an invasive species in our area. There’s a fair amount of it about, climbing up into trees. This vine is growing into a small tree on the other side of the woods from my office. It gets full afternoon sun and it’s quite happy there. Of course, multiflora roses (Rosa multiflora), Japanese and Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica and L. maackii), porcelain-berry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata), mile-a-minute vine (Persicaria perfoliata), and tree of heaven (Ailanthus altissima) to name only a few, are also in profusion through the area, so a little bittersweet is the least of our problems. It’s also quite pretty.

Dipsacus (Teasel)

Because it gets dark about the time I leave work, if I’m going to take pictures outdoors I have to go out during the day. It’s actually a good thing, because it breaks up my day and gets me out of my chair. It isn’t exactly vigorous exercise but at least I’m moving about. Today I went out shortly after noon and went along the edge of the woods. I took some pictures of bright red oak leaves and then saw these teasels (Dipsacus Sp.) growing on the bank sloping down from the road. I especially like the curly bits, which I think add a bit of whimsy to the spiny bracts.

According to Wikipedia, the species Dipsacus includes about 15 species native to Europe, Asia and northern Africa. They are considered an invasive species here, although I think in the scheme of invasive species, they are not as noxious as some others I can think of. This is most likely Dipsacus fullonum, the common of fullers teasel.

Zelkova Lane

No, this isn’t really called Zelkova Lane, but at least for this stretch of Norbeck, I think it could be. Zelkova serrata, the Japanese zelkova, is a really nice tree and should be grown more. As you can see, they turn a beautiful rust color in the fall. I’m not sure it’s the perfect tree for roadway medians like this, but then, few trees do well past a certain size when their root zones are so limited. These are just getting to that size where their roots cannot support any more upstairs and they are starting to die. Those on the side of the road are doing a lot better, though, and should have quite a few more years in them.

Fleurette Mums

Fleurette mums are a group of Chrysanthemum hybrids made between a domestic and a wild, Asiatic Chrysanthemum. They tend to be a more compact and are (like most mums) quite easy to care for and have flowers that last a good, long while. These are technically my mum-in-law’s mum, but that wouldn’t have been as good in the title. These are in a small pot on her kitchen table and are quite cheerful.

Japanese Maple

At the other end of our neighborhood is a yard with a few absolutely beautiful Japanese maples (Acer palmatum) and every fall I look forward to seeing them. This is often the more ‘plain’ of the two most prominent trees but at this point in the fall, it’s the more spectacular of the two. The other is not a pure a red but is more mixed with reds and oranges throughout. As I drove past this afternoon, I stopped, grabbed my camera, and took a few pictures from my car. It’s possibly not as good a picture as I could have gotten, but it does show the bright color of the tree. I’m really enjoying the autumn and it’s going to be done all too soon.

Walnut Shells

The walnuts are falling in great numbers from the many black walnut trees (Juglans nigra) around my office building. I suppose it would be strange if they were falling from anywhere else. The ground under them is covered quite densely, in some places the ground is almost entirely covered with walnuts varying in color from bright chartreuse in the newly fallen fruit to almost black in those that have been on the ground a little while. There are a couple picnic tables along the edge of the woods and the squirrels seem to enjoy using those for their walnut meals. I did move these closer together but they were on the table, along with a bunch of smaller pieces.

Plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides)

I was in a different neighborhood this evening and went into an shopping center I don’t usually visit. On the way in a saw these little flowers and when I was done shopping I took the time to get some pictures. The bright red leaves with beautiful, blue flowers were quite striking. Cathy recognized it as plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides), which is a perennial hardy to USDA zone 6. I know I’ve seen it before but don’t remember seeing the fall color, which is reason enough to get some a sunny spot in the garden.

Hickory Color

As I was driving home, I stopped at a traffic light (like you do) and looked to my left. This is what I saw. I thought, that’s pretty nice, with the late afternoon sun shining on it. So, I picked up my camera (which I try to keep within reach most of the time) and took five pictures before the light turned green. From this distance, I’m not 100% sure what kind of tree is was, but at a guess, I’m going to say it’s a mockernut hickory (Carya tomentosa. The dark red leaves in the lower right are on a Bradford-like pear (Pyrus calleryana).

More Maple Colors

The colors are getting better on a daily basis and by next week they should be at peak in the area. Looking out my window at work, there are lots of yellows on the willow oaks and walnuts. The two large elms are still bright green with only a hint of yellow around the edges. The Virginia creeper has mostly passed red into leaflessness. At home, though, where this picture was taken, the two maples in the back yard are at their reddest best. The red oaks in the front have barely started to change and won’t until after the maples are bare.

Fall Colors, Maple Edition

I walked back from the other building through the woods again late this afternoon and took a few pictures of the fall color. So far, while there are some spectacular trees about, the overall color scene isn’t as great as some years. It isn’t at peak yet, though, and I suspect it will be getting better over the next week or two. This maple is pretty nice so I’m sharing it with you. I hope you don’t mind that there will be a few more like this until they leaves are all down. I do love the fall. It’s cool, the trees are beautiful, bugs are less of a problem, and I love being outdoors. Of course, it also gets dark earlier, but that’s the price we pay.