Recently in flowers Category

This spring, I've been watching the slow awakening of deciduous trees, you know, the trees that lose their leaves in the fall and grow them back in the spring. But there are some trees that stay green all year round: conifers. Back in my second post, I mentioned that all I know about conifers I learned from They Might Be Giants. I knew that conifers didn't lose their needles in the fall, but I hadn't really thought about what happens to them in the spring. Until last week, when I walked by some bushes and noticed that they had developed bright little light green tips.

Although Brookline's town tree inventory says that only about 4% of the town's street trees are ash trees, there are about 10 of them in the two blocks around our house.


my tree with three more ashes across the street

A few weeks after I first started to watch my tree, I began to suspect that these other trees were the same kind of tree as mine. Once my tree started to produce its little purple flowers however, I became doubtful. Only about half of the trees I'd identified as also being ash trees had these flowers. The others seemed to be growing some other kind of leafy something, most likely a totally different kind of flower. But now that the true leaves have started to grow on all these trees, I can see that they are indeed all ash trees. So why the different flowers?

To explain, I have to return to the mystery of the sticky burrs (those crazy brown popcorn-looking balls that I had originally spotted on a few of the other ashes and then discovered on my tree). The sticky burrs turned out to be galls, which are growths caused by a tiny mite that lays its eggs in the male ash tree flowers. Some ash trees, like mine, produce only male flowers. The male flowers are the purple pollen-producing clusters that were all over my tree.



Down the street, there is an ash tree that has entirely different looking flowers. The bark on this tree is the same as mine. The leaves are the same. The structure of the twigs and the pattern of growth are all the same. The only difference is the flowers.



These have to be the female flowers! They are like long fingers reaching out to catch the pollen on tiny red tips.

 

Another sign that this is a female ash tree is the fact that there are no droppings under this tree like there are under the male ash trees. The male trees like mine have recently shaken off all of their pollen-laden flowers and covered the sidewalks beneath them with little brown tree poops.


male ash tree surrounded by droppings

But if there are no pollen-producing flowers on this female tree, where does she get pollen for fertilization? Well... from the tree in the very next sidewalk cutout: a big all-male ash tree. Awwww, they're a couple!



After I discovered this little couple, I decided to take a closer look at the ash trees right around mine (there are 5 directly across the street). You can spot the female right away from how clean the sidewalk is beneath her. She's the one without a ring of poopy-looking flowers underneath her.



But here's the really fascinating thing. Of the five ashes across the street, 2 are boys like mine, there's the 1 girl in the middle, and the other two trees are -- get this! -- both.



They have obvious male flower clusters still hanging on some of their twigs but they also have tons of the finger-like female flowers. How cool is that?! I've said this before, but it bears repeating: trees are weird.

(I found this website really helpful in identifying the different ash tree flowers.)

One week ago, Bud - the little maple tree in front of our house - was just starting to sprout leaves. I was surprised to see them come out of the same buds that had produced all the fabulous tiny green flowers.

On the very first day of spring, the buds on my tree began to open as if on cue to reveal purple flowers. Today, on Arbor Day, the tree shook off the last of those flowers and transformed itself into a green leafy tree just like the maples that bloomed last week.

Only yesterday, heavy, wilted flowers still hung from all the twigs.

Yesterday I noticed that the flowers have started to fall off of my tree.

I've been watching the little purple flowers on my tree turn green. At first, I thought there were new green flower parts growing beneath or behind the purple bits. Then, as things got really green, it seemed like the purple was falling off or opening up, leaving all the green behind. But then it rained.

About a week ago, I showed you a few pictures of some trees in the neighborhood just starting to bloom. A tree near our parking space had some lettuce-y green stuff coming out of its buds and the buds on our sad little tree, Bud, had started to turn green.



After watching these two trees closely for the past week, I've realized that they are the same type of tree! Two days later, Bud's little buds started opening.



Two days later...



And then two days after that, there was the lettuce!



It turns out the lettuce is flowers. Little green flowers.



Bud is covered with them today.



His brother tree down the street, who was so far ahead with the lettuce, is still in the lead with scores of these green flower bundles.



I have decided that these are maples, Norway maples. It's mostly a guess, from Bud's opposite branching pattern, little brown buds, and the fact that the most common street tree in our town is the Norway maple.

Fun fact: The town's tree inventory states that 21% of Brookline's street trees are Norway maples. Only 4 1/2% are ash trees like mine!

The flowers on my tree are definitely changing color!



As the tiny purple fingers continue to grow longer, I have been following the emergence of some green under the purple tips.



I was guessing that either the little flower parts were green at the bottom or new parts were growing that were green.



But this morning, I turned over a twig to see the side that I usually can't see, the side that faces the sun in the morning and perhaps gets the most sun.



All green!

After looking at this big gray tree for two months, I'm so thrilled that it is finally starting to have color!

The flower clusters glow almost red in the morning light.



And the sun reflecting off the mossy growth on the bark hints at all the green to come.



The rain reveals deeper hues in the brown buds and pistachio leaves emerging from the twigs.



And the camera lens confirms my suspicion that the purple flowers are turning green.







For more fabulous pictures of trees in early spring bloom, check out this amazing photoblog from a woman following 93 trees for a whole year. Her pictures this month really capture the tiny yet amazing beginnings that make spring so magical. 

More sun and more rain means more green! Our sad little tree in front of the house has started to change. The buds were reddish before last week, but now they're opening up to reveal a golden green.