Friday, April 23, 2010

Friday My Town Shoot-Out: Trees!

Friday My Town Shoot-Out is a sharing of photographs from all around the world.  Pop over here to find links to dozens of participants and their wonderful shots of their home communities.  This week's topic is trees.

Ah, we love trees.  Unfortunately, I was not on the ball enough for this week's topic to take photos of some of the trees I should have around here - the buckeye for instance, which is one of the earliest to leaf out here and is Ohio's state tree.  Its friendly five fingers are spreading all along the forest paths we walk.  Fortunately, I take a lot of pictures of trees, so unprepared as I am, I still have some to share!
The Pawpaw has recently become the Ohio native state fruit.  We have been looking for its long leaves this spring, because we love the zebra swallowtails and it is the host plant for their larvae.  We didn't realized that it blossoms first, on long bare branches, and that the leaves are only just starting to appear.  Apparently Audubon used the feathery tips of the new leaf growth at the ends of the twigs as a paint brush for the delicate details on the wings of his birds.
The white bones of the sycamores are just now donning some green.  During the winter they are the skeletons that stand out bold against a blue sky.  If you look closely enough, though, you can also see their rather festive seed balls, that look something like ornaments hanging in their branches.
Though the cherry trees along the Hocking River are not native to this area - they were a gift from Chubu University, in Japan - their short reign over the landscape is glorious.  Every evening of their blooming there are special lights set up to emphasize their moon glow, and there are couples everywhere lying beneath the blossoms, soaking up the romance of this emblem of spring.  And...of course they make for good climbing!
Spring here means redbud trees.  Driving through the countryside, it looks as though an impressionist painter has gone a little mad in his rendering of the yellows and greens of springtime and has liberally sponged a brilliant fuschia across entire hillsides. 
And those buds are good to eat! (Deviled eggs with violets and redbuds)

9 comments:

The Magic Onions said...

I LOVE your deviled eggs!!!

Barry said...

Not only were your pictures wonderful but I learned a lot. Heck your take on the tree theme was so good you should charge admission.

gigi said...

Those children in the trees are just to cute. Your trees are beautiful!
Happy weekend!

Kerry said...

What a great post. I love the detail about Audubon's paintbrush, how cool is that. Maybe I can find a similar type of hairy new growth here and try it out.
And those eggs...

Jama said...

I love the picture of the tree with the kids in it, something we don't do anymore here. I used to climb tree as a child because we have lots of trees in the neighbourhood, nowadays with almost 80% of population staying in high rise apartment, kids simply do no have the luxury or outdoor play anymore.

NanU said...

Fabulous trees you have there, Slim!

Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 said...

I just commented on another site how we in New Zealand have names for another tree. Your pawpaw is idfferent from a NZ pawpaw which is a small papaya.

I like those things that dangles from the tree. Pick a few, spray them ,and you have your own Christmas balls.

Unknown said...

these are great! my fav is the next to last one with the two little ones walking down the lane. awesome!!

Chef E said...

Oh you have reached my tummy with those beautiful deviled eggs!

I love your post and photography!