SPRING AT LAST, AND SOME OF ITS LESS OBVIOUS FLOWERS

BEAKED HAZELNUT MALE CATKIN

BEAKED HAZELNUT, FEMALE FLOWER

ORNAMENTAL PUSSY WILLOW IN FULL FLOWER

Tuesday, 8:30 AM  42 degrees F, wind S, light.  The sky is clear with haze in the east.  The barometer is steady at 30.12 and the humidity is 88%.  It will be a fine day.  It's spring at last!  And then a neighbor had to remind me that it is only 44 more days until the sun starts heading back south.  Thanks a lot!
   The native beaked hazelnut, Corylus cornuta, is flowering, the male catkins shedding their pollen and the female flowers fully open.  The species name, cornuta, refers to the shape of the "bleak" of the husk of the nut, "like a trumpet."  For additional discussion of the native and hortciultural hazelnuts, use the blog search engine.
   The ornamental pussy willows are mostly derived from the European goat willow, Salix caprea. The one pictured has many of the "pussy's" in full flower, shedding their yellow pollen.
  The Jack pine on the south side of the house, which was ruined by the heavy snow, now lies in a heap  on the roadside, waiting for the city to pick it up.  It was one of my favorite trees, and the house looks naked without it.