Top Photo: Japanese apricot (Prunus mume) flower buds. Just a brief reminder that Japanese apricot is about to burst into bloom, thorny olive is fruiting, and American holly still has plenty of fruit left over to satisfy the resident robins, wintering hermit thrushes, and visiting waxwings. Two of these plants are non-natives while the last, American holly, is born and bred. They all produce drupes, fruits that have one central seed surrounded by a fleshy, usually edible, part and skinRead more
Posts tagged: #berry
Looking Back: Flora
With the closing of the year it’s perhaps time to look back and see what we’ve observed on the Explore the Wild/Catch the Wind Loop. With plenty of rain and no deep freezes during spring, it was a fairly good year for the berry, seed, and nut crop. Many people in the Triangle area are reporting lower than usual numbers of certain birds at their feeders, particularly northern seed-eating species. This is anecdotal, but it would seem that the birdsRead more