Like many people, I greatly enjoy the look of new spring growth when it starts to emerge. I'm sure I appreciate it more than I would otherwise because, even after 40-some years in this climate, it still looks a bit exotic to me. A season characterized by fresh new growth all over the place just doesn't happen in the tropics.
This morning I became intrigued by the subtle differences in appearance of the candles of different species of pine. Here are a few pictures.
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Ponderosa, Pinus ponderosa. This tree is a yamadori still recovering from collection a little over a year ago;
thus the short candles. |
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| Pinus ponderosa. Close-up of the terminal candle above. |
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Also Pinus ponderosa, but a different tree. This one has been its growing box
for a few years, so its candles are longer. |
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Japanese black pine, Pinus thunbergii. This tree suffered some heat stress last summer, which caused
the damage to some needles. It's recovering nicely now. |
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| Austrian pine, Pinus nigra. Also called European black pine. |
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| Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris. This tree also suffered some heat stress last summer but is recovering. |
And a surprise at the end of a branch on the ponderosa in the third picture: pollen cones developing at the base of a lengthening candle!
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| Pinus ponderosa, pollen cones. I'm not going to remove them, lest I damage the candle around which they cluster. |
:-) :-) :-)
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