Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida) and with needles growing from its trunk, being photobombed by a Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus).
Redbud (Cercis canadensis) with flower buds emerging from its trunk.
Who would have thought Redbud and Pitch Pine have something in common.
These are cauliflorous trees. They have flowers that emerge from their main trunk or larger branches. It is thought that this makes the flowers and fruit more easily accessed for pollination and dispersal of their seeds.
And the word cauliflorous has nothing to do with cauliflower.
This past December fooled me. It was so warm. Not at all the way December is supposed to be in the Blue Ridge Mountains or in the Mid-Atlantic states. The whole month was that way. The warmth had me worried about how the rest of the winter would be.
But January came through for me. It’s been a nice frigid cold. Perfect. So far my cabin has been decorated by 17″ of beautiful snow. The first came on January 3rd. Those 9″ were the best, wet, clinging, heavy snow that stayed on the trees for several days. A perfect fairyland. These pictures are not of those snows but what winter also brings, the frosty cold, and with it, ICE.
The first image at the top of this post is of ice on the vernal pool at my yoga studio. The second is also at the yoga studio, and is of frost. And the photo just above this text is ice covered Blueberry buds. And no need to worry, the Blueberry flowers and the berries themselves were just fine, not damaged at all by the ice.
These buds are of Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida). And again Mother Nature is a gentle artist, creating beautiful landscapes covered in ice and still those buds were not harmed. Going on to bloom, creating another gorgeous landscape of flowers a couple months later.
More ice and another Dogwood. This one Gray Dogwood (Cornus racemosa) with its fruit stalks, or pedicels encrusted in ice.
And here, one of my favorite Pine trees. Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida). Plastered in ice. All this icy elegance, just one part of why winter is my favorite season.
It snowed overnight. Wet puffy snow has covered everything. I’ve been transported into a Christmas card waiting to be signed and sent on its way.
Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida)
It’s the second snow here this winter making winter seem a bit more like the way winters ought to be. The winters that I think of when I think back to Kilmer Street and that wonderful hill. A great sledding hill, and oh! those snow forts!
Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana)
I’m roaming this morning. Me with my camera getting pelted with snowballs as the wet snow dropped from the trees. We stopped to get a picture of the berries of Smooth Sumac that the Northern Flicker, and Hermit Thrush love to gobble.
Smooth Sumac (Rhus glabra)
The snow has really accumulated on the leaves of the White Oak tree. Young White Oak trees often keep their leaves during winter. Other trees that have this same characteristic are Beech, and Hornbeam. They are said to be marcescent.
White Oak (Quercus alba)
The snow has collected in the Flowering Dogwood trees as if they are stocking up on snowballs. Getting set for that big snowball battle surely soon to happen.
Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida)
Camera and I follow the tracks of a wild turkey for a long way, until the tracks take a turn up and over a rock wall. We don’t feel like climbing.
Wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)track. Glove added for scale.
The turkey’s track is about 4.5 inches long and the big critter has a stride of 2.5 feet. WOW!
Forsythia
The Forsythia has reached up, catching many clumps of snow. Stretching to where the sun might have been on any other morning. Stretching tall, other branches drooping. All waiting for the warmth of the sun. The warmth of early spring to be brightened by its blooms.
Perhaps those blooms will wait a little longer. I don’t think winter is close to being over. I hope not.
