Recently in flowers Category

OMG! That's full on green in there. What is that doing there? Are these turning green? Or were they green and then turned purple?

I went back to my pictures from the weekend before the terminal buds opened and I hadn't even started thinking green yet. I found this picture of a developing flower.

What struck me about this is the color of the tips of the tiny flower petals coming from the buds. Those on the top of the twig have purple tips, but on the bottom, the tips are green. See it? What's that about??

And here's how they looked yesterday, after four days drinking in the sun and warmth of spring.

This is a dramatic change in one week. The brown is almost entirely gone. I feel like last week they looked like brown buds with some purple stuff coming out, whereas they now look like bundles of purple flowers bound together with some brown paper. Like a bouquet you might buy in the store.

Here's another branch on April 5th:



And yesterday, April 11th:



What a week for that twig, huh?!

So was all this progress due to the weather? Or was this just the natural progression of the process that started way back on the first day of spring? Was it progressing more slowly until the weather warmed up or is the beginning just slower than this part? I don't know if what I've observed is enough to answer these questions. But I have heard of "forcing" plants and flowers. As far as I know, it's a way of encouraging or tricking the plant to open up and start blooming earlier than it would normally. I think one way of forcing a plant is to give it some of the weather conditions it needs to get started growing again. So perhaps this great week of growth wasn't merely programmed in from the start. Perhaps the weather had the same effect on these buds that it did on most Bostonians this last week: the warmth on our faces and sunshine on our backs managed to coax us, once and for all, out of our winter havens and our weather skepticism. It's okay to come out now. Spring has truly arrived.

They're gonna be flowers!

I think.

You can really see the tearing on this top bud here. Amazing!

Look, there's a bunch of shreds still left on the purple stuff of that one! Fascinating. I wonder if the bud also gets thinner so that it's easier for the purple stuff to push its way out. Or do the buds really just disintegrate, sort of like the roots of a baby tooth when it's time for it to fall out?

PS - Can I just say that the macro function on my camera is a wonderful thing! It has allowed me to look so closely at these buds. I've been able to see things I never would have noticed if I was only using my eyes.

Not much difference, if any. But those buds in the left corner of the picture do look a little further along.

Here's another cluster from yesterday:

And the same cluster three days ago:

Humph.

Finally, here's the tip of another twig yesterday:

And here's that same twig six days ago after some light snowfall:

That's definite progress!

There's more snow expected tonight, so I'm guessing these buds will stay in the slow lane for a while still.

Huzzah!

Well, these dark dots are on almost all of the buds now.

They look like eyes opening.

The ones that opened first look like they have grape jelly oozing out of them.

What is that stuff going to be?! And if it is the flowers, will any of them turn into the galls that I've seen on my tree? That would be fascinating to see.

And I wonder what effect this morning's snow will have on their growth.

It certainly doesn't make me want to go out! I imagine it might affect them in the same way.

Little purpley things are in there!

They look like they could be teeny tiny seeds or the beginning of flowers. They're all bundled up in there and seem to be poking through the center of each swollen bud. This! is! so! exciting!

Here's one that is just about to crack. You can see a little dark spot at the center of the buds here, where the little purple seeds will soon be poking out. It's like watching a baby chick hatch. Come on, you can do it!

The lateral buds along the side of the branches are opening up too.

If you look real close, it looks like the buds are even fuzzy.

They are so different than they were just two weeks ago. And what a change from the buds on the broken off branch I found in the snow a month ago.

Hello spring!