On Cornus

Cornelian cherry buds just opening, Brooklyn Bridge Park end of February 2012

Seeing the Cornelian Cherry buds up close yesterday at Brooklyn Bridge Park (for more of what's happening there - a Bluebell photo contest even- visit the link to Brooklyn Bridge Park's blog or take a walk to see spring unfolding there for yourself in person) was kind of an aha moment. I knew the Cornelian cherry was related to the Cornus florida, the spring-blooming dogwood native to this area. Same genus. But the resemblance between the two only finally caught my eye clearly yesterday and it was in the buds.


Cornus florida winter buds at NYBG last January


Blooming Cornelian Cherry Dogwood, Prospect Park, mid-to-late March last year

It's less easy for me to see that resemblance when the flowers are open. But I rarely get up close and personal with the Cornelian cherry. Mostly, it just appears to me in the distance as this lovely haze of yellow in the empty canopy of early spring. Our native Dogwoods most anybody recognizes and could draw, (but it's the petal-like bracts and not the actual flower clusters that catch the eye) and they are the image that will forever come to mind first whenever I hear the word Dogwood. You know I love them the most.

On The Cusp of Spring at Brooklyn Bridge Park

There is both the sign that a new season is beginning and the reminder of the season passed. In the places where plants are allowed to remain as they are throughout the four seasons, this is an excellent time to pay attention to the beauty of both the old and the new. There are buds swelling with spring's flowers and leaves while old seed heads and stalks still stand and though it may be happening earlier this year than most (It's still February for one more day), this time between seasons comes every year.

Wild and Otherwise

One planted in the new Brooklyn Bridge Park and the other pioneering on its own at old Floyd Bennett airfield. I'm still thinking that it's what you see that matters. I'm not sure whether both are Little Bluestem or whether one is Common Broom-sedge, but I know that in both cases, I'm looking at a resilient native grass.

On Two Brooklyn Waterfronts in Winter

Ring-billed Gulls in two winter stages (perhaps?), Jamaica Bay, Floyd Bennett Field

I'm no birder, but the spillover from learning to identify plants continues. Cornell's Lab of Ornithology website was my goto in attempting to name the birds above. The fruit of the Sumac below is a familiar sight from bike rides down to the garden at Floyd Bennett, where both Staghorn and Smooth Sumac grow, seemingly wild by the roadside. Here the fruit is near the East River at Brooklyn Bridge Park, perhaps planted, perhaps a volunteer or pioneer. One of these days, perhaps we will make lemonade from the berries in summer.






















Smooth Sumac, Rhus glabra (methinks) fruit by the East River, Brooklyn Bridge Park

Brooklyn Bridge Park, Take Three

The roses that line the incline bright with hips, some grass seedheads below. This is not a haiku. Just a winter walk in the park.

Eureka

I'm starting to think that the buds above are on a Rhodendron or Azalea and that the large terminal bud is a flower bud and the smaller ones at its side are leaf buds. I took the picture at Brooklyn Bridge Park because I was struck by the color and beauty of the buds, but wasn't sure what plant I was looking at. It was partly defoliated. But after seeing some Rhododendron buds yesterday in BBG's Rock Garden and outside of the Native Flora garden, I think I see a similarity. I guess next spring I'll have an excuse to revisit the Brooklyn Bridge Park again and try to find out. I've been thinking about that park since I visited and about New York City investing in making its waterfronts more accessible and usable for people. I like the trend and not just because I enjoy being by the water. I like that it reminds me of the geography of where I am. It's pretty hard to forget you're on an island and not just in the city when you're surrounded by water. Appreciating the land you're standing on and the water it's surrounded by is probably the first step in deciding that you want to take care of it and that can't be a bad thing for this city.

Brooklyn Bridge Park

A field trip with Joe on my day off to check out the landscape design elements and fall color of the new Brooklyn Bridge Park, and to try identifying species without handy labels nearby. Failure number one: the chrysalis above. No idea what kind of butterfly it might be, but I think it's hanging on a beech tree. The buds look pointy enough to me and similar to ones I remember on the beeches in Prospect Park last winter, but I can't be sure. Better success below, with the changing needle color of the deciduous Baldcypress and the beautiful Oakleaf Hydrangea.




It was a beautiful day with bright sunshine and blooming witchhazel, two of my favorite things. What's not to like about this new park and it's plantings?