It’s flower time

I experience all of the seasons working closely with trees, and they are fascinating year round. I know it is sort of a given to “love spring”, because of course everyone loves spring. Spring is an exceptional time to be looking closely at trees for their flowers.

It is easy to be distracted by all of the annuals and perennials coming up in garden beds. Before those plants are even close to their full glory, the trees put on a show in spring. You just have to look up!

All deciduous trees in our region have flowers. Conifers, like pine trees, don’t produce “flowers”, and instead produce more primitive reproductive organs called strobili (which I haven’t taken a good enough photo to include here).

To nerd out for a second, I often see and hear the word “blooming” used incorrectly. We say a tree is blooming while it is flowering. When its leaves are emerging, it is not blooming, it is leafing-out.

OK, couldn’t miss my opportunity to say that.

Check out some of my tree flower close-ups:

Flowers of saucer magnolia - magnolia x soulangeana

Saucer magnolia blooms, a classic in our region.

Giant panicles belonging to the horse chestnut, a summertime bloom.

Flower of horse chestnut - aesculus hippocastanum

Some are very obvious, and some might require binoculars to find. The timing of all of these blooms vary, and they generally don’t last very long.

Flowers of eastern redbud - cercis canadensis

Eastern redbud blooms often grow not only on branches, but straight out of the trunk too!

The subtle and inconspicuous flower of the american hophornbeam.

flower of american hophornbeam - ostrya virginiana

“Male” flowers, also called staminate flowers of pussywillow. They only grow stamens, the flower part that produces pollen.

“Female” flowers, also called pistillate flowers of red maple. They only grow pistils, the part of the flower that contains an ovary.

You could say based on this, that some trees that are “male”, and some are “female”. Interestingly, most trees are both! There is no anatomical difference between “male” and “female” trees besides their flowers.

About the time you’ll see this email, there are only a handful of trees in bloom right now. One is the vernal witch hazel, a bizarre and alien-looking bloom.

Before you know it, the classic trees will be blooming like the crabapples, the pears, and the cherries. Don’t forget to appreciate those. But also don’t forget to keep your eyes (and nose) out for the less obvious tree flowers too, like the wonderfully fragrant black locust bloom in early summer.

At this point I’m just finding any reason to include cool flower photos I have. But it would be cool to see what you find too. As the year goes on, please feel free to send me any cool tree photos you have, especially flower photos. I’d love to see them.

Alright, talk to ya later. Tell your trees I said hi.

Tree First