Monthly Archives: November 2016

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.