Saw three different witch-hazel trees in full bloom this a.m., walking the dogs on the Boone Greenway. (This is not a picture of what we saw today but looks exactly like what you'll see near the Last Bridge before the Humane Society compound at that end of the Greenway.)The local variety (Hamamelis virginiana) blooms yellow and grows along the margins of woods as an understory small tree or large spindly shrub.
It's one of the wonders of botany that this native has found its own niche and blooms out of season, compared to most other flowering shrubs.
We have an orange-flowering variety in our garden which normally doesn't bloom until warm winter days in January and February. Remarkably, even then there are pollinators that visit those little ribbons of crepe.
Nobody has made a comment about this all day so I will. Specimens of this unusual shrub (small tree?) were on my previous property and I had to look it up the first year I lived there, so intriguing it was to find something coming into bloom when the leaves were off everything else. You can spot it in a lot of places--e.g. the trail around Trout Lake in Blowing Rock. It puts its fruits, seeds and flowers out at the same time, very unusual.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jer, for posting something not political,I know you have a great garden and interest in things like this. After this past week, a return to nature may be called for....