Friday, April 6, 2012

ID Update

Spring 2012cMystery solved!

A while back, Ken and I encountered a local botanist on a nature hike, and we have stayed in touch. So I sent Scott the Botanist pictures of our flowering tree and the tiny little lawn flower.


Hi Beth. Nice to hear from you! The first plant is a Prunus (cherry), but I can't say which species. I don't have any experience with horticultural plants, and this is definitely a cultivar of some sort. Looking at photos online, the flowers look right for a weeping cherry, but that's the best I can do. The second photo looks like Veronica polita (wayside speedwell), a common lawn weed.

I did a little further checking online, and it looks like our cherry tree is a Kwanzan cherry. One of the easiest flowering trees to grow, huh? Guess that explains why I haven’t managed to kill it yet. And as I mentioned on one of my Facebook groups, Sociopathy and Flowers, Wayside Speedwell is my new rock and roll name. Hey kids, rock and roll...rock on!

I’m very happy to have finally put a name to that tree. I knew it was some sort of cherry, but was never able to pin down exactly what kind. We’ve lived here over ten years, and I’ve always wondered what it was.

Speaking of cherry trees, if anyone is interested, USA Network will be showing a 50th anniversary presentation of “To Kill A Mockingbird” at 8:00 pm Eastern. President Obama will be introducing the movie, and we plan on watching it. It’s such a wonderful movie, and it’s been quite a while since I saw it.

That wasn’t a very good segue, was it?

6 comments:

  1. Beautiful tree!

    Happy Easter.

    Hugs,Rose

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  2. Pretty flowers by any name! I didn't know that Kwanza had a tree; I thought it just involved lighting candles in December. (I couldn't help myself.)

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  3. We have those little flowers throughout our yard too, so thanks for giving them a name!! And What A Name!

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  4. ... dag... I canceled cable the other day..! I can prolly go to the library or failing that, Netflix it... won't be the same but it will have the same spirit..!

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  5. Very pretty. Wish we had that"weed" in our lawn. Stan and I love keying things out. We can't always pin down everything down, but we can get pretty close most times. Got to love science.

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