Roaming the trails up here, you’re going to find Pinxter Azaleas (Rhododendron periclymenoides) blooming with their beautiful pink flowers, here and there. It’s a deciduous shrub that is native from Massachusetts to South Carolina and Tennessee.
Spring is unfolding in such a lovely way!
Just now beginning to leaf out, greeting spring. Maple-leaf Viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium), native to eastern North America, an understory, deciduous shrub.
It’s plentiful up here on my mountain, and is easy to identify with its twin, maple-like leaves. I’ve been fortunate to have received several of these shrubs as gifts. Shrubs that I’m watching grow as each year passes. Shrubs that add to my pleasure living in the woods.
The Maple-leaf Viburnum will mature to a height of six feet and a width of 4 feet. In early May pale pink buds emerge making way for soft white flat-topped flower clusters, know as cymes.
Maple-leaf Viburnum has a nectar that with its fragrance attracts bees, flower flies, moths and butterflies to help pollinate the flowers. It’s also a larval host of the Spring Azure.
The cyme, is one to three inches wide consisting of quarter inch wide individual flowers, a soft white often with a slight hint of pink.
These flowers must be cross-pollinated with another Maple-leaf Viburnum plant that is not an exact clone in order for berry-like drupes to appear in the autumn.
The fruits are attractive to many birds, including Ruffed Grouse, Cedar Waxwings, Cardinals, Hermit Thrushes, Eastern Bluebirds, Robin and Wild Turkeys.
If proper pollination takes place, the flowers give way to blue-black drupes in late autumn that may persist into the winter. The autumn leaf color ranges from shades of pink to red, leaning toward purple, and warm yellow. Gorgeous!
She’s celebrating her 104th birthday. Absolutely marvelous. She’s part of an amazing family. A family that brings love to everything they do. And she loves Violets. So Violets it will be.
There are somewhere between four hundred and five hundred different species of Violets in the genus Viola, and those Violets are scattered all over this planet.
I’m really pleased to find many many different species of them here on my mountain, up in Shenandoah National Park and other places that I roam.
I’m thrilled to find an unknown leaf, an unknown flower and Violets always surprise me with their variety.
There is even at least one small shrub in the genus Viola which grows in Portugal. Most other species are either perennial or annual plants.
I don’t think I’ll be getting to Portugal anytime soon but that’s fine. There’s so many Violets here to keep me busy with finding, photographing and identifying them.
Keep in mind as you’re tending your gardens to leave some of the Violets. They’re beautiful and they are depended upon by many of the Fritillary butterflies as a primary host plant.
Sending loads of Violet thoughts and many hugs to you, birthday girl!
A meander up the mountain two days ago. The Trilliums would be blooming. I found them, white turning to soft, delicate pink. Always special. But I noticed a small tree full of airy blooms way up there near where I usually turn around. Flowers I didn’t recognize. As is my custom I took photos and brought them back home and began the research. Just my thing. I always love a mystery. It didn’t take too much time and I had figured it out. The airy blooms are American Plum (Prunus americana).
The airy look of the blooms created by a pistil with a lengthy style, and many long stamens. Looking feathery and soft. Leaves are just beginning to peek out.
The American Plum is a small tree or shrub. It’s widespread and native to North America from Saskatchewan and Idaho south to New Mexico and east to Québec, Maine and Florida. If you look carefully in this photo, you’ll see it has many thorns, though not terribly sharp, thank goodness. I’m going to be watching as spring turns to summer hoping to see the plums that develop.
