Snapshot (Repost) - Cream to Green

Bradford Pear, Cream to Green

Southern Oak Catkins

a mountain Maple type going to seed

Red Maple, going to seed

Mountain Maple, or Beach Maple going to seed


Snapshot Week 10: 3/8-3/14 - Cream to Green (Repost 2009)

Note: It appears we are about a week behind last year in the bloom cycle, so this should give a sense of what we will see this week (3/22/2010  with the Brads just now gowing green.)

The great revolution this week was only visible to the highly observant. A vast spreading but as yet largely unrealized green is sneaking into every blade and branch. The overall impact when looking at the woods is still one of brush and bone, but there are signs that these too are ready to rage.

This week was cool (COLD) and wet, hence many things stayed kind of like they were last week. The brads are still holding bloom though waxing green. I expect them to go fully limon during the week of March 15.

The maple too are in revolution, as the Silver-tip, the Red, and various Mountain Maple types are in full seed force. (Only the Sugar Maples appear to hold back, not even given to flower.)

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Many of the Oaks, including the Southern Red and various water oaks are putting out catkins (a brown-green floral worm). Still, I have to see any catkin action on the massive Pin Oaks or various White oaks, many of which hold fall brown.

Other action: Saturday, March 14th marked the first day of the Wye Mountain Daffodil fest.

Lots of Henbit and lawn flower activity.

The overall effect was one of wet, green under surge.

Oops, almost forgot. HUGE week for the Red Bud, Peach, and Plum. Will post a Redbud page later this week.

Other things still seen:

Clatonia - everywhere

forsythia/japonica blooms (mixed with green)

roange berries (harder to see as the world greens)

Snapshot Week 14: April 5-11

Water Oak in living green



Dogwoods barking loudly, some going to leaf.

"Rorange" berries. I have yet to learn the name of this plant, but berries are not new, they have been in place since deep winter.

Crimson clover boldly bound along Arkansas highways.

As of April 11, I now think of Spring in Central Arkansas as about half way done. The marker?--that triad of limon-green trees, and dogwood casting shadows on hot-pink azaleas.

Truth is, this was a schizophrenic week. The very best and worst of Spring, with chilly bright skies, tornadoes, freezing nights and open-door days. The week opened under vicious wind and closed with weeping skies. With heaven in between.

Heavy winds toss this emerging Willow Oak.
Willow Oak Catkin clump.

I hadn't really taken it in before this year, but the White Oak and Pin Oak appear later in the line of Oaks going into floral catkin flourish. And flourish they have, it great bulky mass. (I've noticed too, that I can now tell White Oaks from a distance, apart from a leaf. They are marked by a certain waviness to the branches.

White Oak covered in catkin.

The last of the new green is giving way to that wonderful "calico" green.... a splotchy blend of various green hues, from sage, to limon, to army, to the dark green of the pine, which will -- as the weeks unfold, darkened into a uni-mass. (Yellow patch = buttercups)

General observations:

Dog wood in full floral flourish, some going to leaf.
Redbud pretty much mopped up, with a few stragglers.
Limp dusty wisteria vines.
The Jesamine vines, with yellow flower seem thinner.
The byways are heavy under Crimson clover.
The hard branched Pin Oak softening with green.
Yellow "ragwort" on sticks, sticking out of pasture land
Purple "Blue Phlox" sprouting on roadsides.

Butter cups continue to thicken in pastures and in wet spots.
A lot more of the carnation bush for which I do not have a name -- in snowy bloom.

Snapshot Week 13: March 29 - April 5: Virid

Beyond the "Dogs" the big news this week was green - in every virid shade. (Virid = living pulsing green of a sort that doesn't seem to record with full force on film/or a digital plane. I have often thought of virid green to be the opposite but equal of blood-red corpuscles as viewed through a microscope. )




The new Sweetgum seedballs begin to mature. If I have it right, only one of the balls of the multi-ball cluster makes the descent, while the rest of the cluster falls to the ground. (See week 11)


Redbud purple dims as new green "hearts" push from the tips.

Not sure if this is new Walnut or Pecan growth (Mount Magazine view)

Still waiting on a better ID, but this catkin belongs to a member of the Birch family.



(File/04) Southern Red Oak goes to leaf, even as the catkins leave.

End of week, Southern Red Oak in full regalia (but still thickening)



Virid copper green Oaks near the State Capitol. These would be Willow Oaks, unless the leaf fattens up and I find they are Water Oaks. (There are some other very apparent Willow Oaks on ground that are not near as bunchy with leaf.


While the White oaks and Pin Oaks seem just now bursting forth in copper catkin (those floral chains that look like worms), many of the other oaks are shedding their "worms" as the new leaves push into flower, and spread them (with wind help) into dusty humps upon the ground.



I'm pretty sure these are the seeds of a Silver Tip maple, now turning brittle and the color of straw. Next week, whirling wind.




What a wild wisteria patch! I hope to return next year and harvest a body of images.




Other things observed:

Azalias (sp?), blooming under the dogwood.
Red bud greatly diminished
Red Clover building in mounds
Purple Vetch beginning to out from the Red Clover mix
Dock weed in the interstate
lots of the yellow stick (daisy family) flowers
White bushes coated in mini-carnation.

Red Maple given to bold green leafing
Silver tip Maple given to whirly seed browning, far less leaf than the Red.
Sugar Maple flowerettes strewn on the ground, a suggestion of whirly bird seed.

Snapshot week 11: 3/15 - 3/21 New Green

Bradford Pears go green, petals roll down the street.

Lawns are rather bumpity with all kinds of fresh weed growth, onion grass, and nettle. (More next week)

Redbud, harmonize with new green and the copper green of new Oak (catkin) growth.

Garden Peach tree

New Sweetgum leaves and seedball clusters, with a couple of seed balls left from last year. (Note: the new seed balls will eventually drop and then hang below the branch as the balls gain mass.

Work kept me hopping this last week so new photo content is at a premium, but this last week was dominated by the cast of Redbud on the newly emerging oaks, and the proliferation of the Maple seedlings (Red, Mountain, Silvertip). Other standouts: new Sweetgum seed/leaf, the last of the peach, bold white cherry, and assorted other fruit tree blooms of uncertain identity.)

Maple "Helicopter seeds" belonging to an unknown variety. (Probably Mountain Maple)