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Monday, May 17, 2010

5/17/10 THE DIVERSITY OF FLOWERING CRAB TREES

ANOTHER FINE DAY
POPLAR SEEDS COLLECTING ON THE ROADSIDE

A BEAUTIFUL CRAB
,,,AND ANOTHER
,,,TWO MORE
OLD FASHIONED 'DOLGO' CRABS WEST OF IRONWOOD

Monday, 8:30 AM. 53 degrees, wind SSW, very light. The channel is glassy, the sky clear with some haze, but the barometer predicts rain.
Yesterday’s trip to Duluth was a welcome diversion, and I ended up buying a new shotgun at Gander Mountain. A 20 ga. over and under, it should be a good field gun and I hope will be O.K. for goose hunting over decoys.
The poplars are going to seed and beginning to collect in windrows on the roadsides.
The photos of flowering crab trees are just to tickle your fancy. Crabs, in the apple genus, (Malus) are native all over the Northern Hemisphere, and over hundreds of years they have been selected and hybridized to the point of complete integration. I would not pretend to be able to name many with certainty. Our most useful native is the prairie crab, Malus ioensis. The variety of shapes, sizes, color of bloom and fruit of the crab trees boggle the mind. Fire blight can be a problem and resistant varieties should be chosen.

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