Flowers at last!

Isn’t it great to see flowers blooming and leaves starting to show? 

April forsythia, essence of yellow

In my neighborhood, it’s graceful magnolias, heart-lifting yellow masses of forsythia, and flowering cherries, some romantically asymmetrical like inhabitants of Japanese scroll paintings. 

Magnolias, briefly celestial

    In my front yard the groundcover (Vinca minor) is sporting periwinkle blue flowers among the truer blue of glory-of-the snow (Chionodoxa luciliae). 

Vinca puts on its spring show

The first daffodils and hyacinths have opened. Despite my protests that spring came late, this is all happening exactly on schedule. In my yard, the last week of April is the official start of the outdoor garden season. 

Daffodils among the vinca

    I’ve been struck this year by the beauty of the first tree flowers, not just the ornamental trees with big flowers like those magnolias. Red maple buds (Acer rubrum) have opened to reveal batches of tiny deep red flowers along the twigs. 

Red maple in bloom

This tree has male and female flowers, sometimes on the same tree. By the time the leaves start to open, the fertilized female flowers will already be ready to strew their whirly seed pods, called samaras, on May sidewalks.

Red maple seeds pods

A fascinating study by local biologist Richard Primack elucidated the somewhat fluid gender distribution among 79 red maples in a nearby park. He found that while 75 percent of the trees were male and 23 percent were female, 2 percent varied from male to female from year to year. Of the 77 consistently male or female trees, 12 showed a few flowers of the opposite sex some years. So apparently maples refuse to be defined by the gender binary.

    As much as I curse the ever-so-fecund Norway maple (Acer platanoides) and wish it had never been chosen as a street tree, I find its lacy flowers beautiful, especially seen against streetlights on warm spring evenings. 

Even Norway maples have intriguing flowers

Later we’ll see the dangling flowers of the oaks as these trees prepare to leaf out, last among our local deciduous trees.

A red oak twig

    I’ve been focusing a lot recently on flowers that need insect pollinators, because those insects are essential at the base of the food web for all us animals on earth. Maples, oaks, and lots of other trees don’t have to attract pollinators. They can rely on the wind for pollination, although their pollen can be an important early food for insects such as bees when little else is blooming. 

     That’s why these trees don’t have to make showy, colorful flowers with insect-attracting tricks such as ultraviolet runway markings pointing the way to the “nectar reward.” They just hang out their stamens in open air so that the wind will catch the pollen. That’s also why they make so much of that pollen, as seasonal allergy sufferers are well aware.

     I find that as time go by, I’m more drawn to the subtle flowers of these trees and less to dinnerplate dahlias and their like. Small can be elegant.