Blue-eyed Grass, Buttercups and Ox-eye Daisy are in flower. Fringe Tree, or Old Man’s Beard, is also in bloom. You can see this small tree or shrub with its unusual, stringy, white flowers on the left side of the path just before entering the Red Wolf Exhibit and next to the path between Catch the Wind and Explore the Wild on the back side of the Explore the Wild/Catch the Wind Loop.
All of the trees on the Explore the Wild/Catch the Wind Loop are showing fresh new growth at this time. Some are completely leafed out, some nearly so. This would be a good time to illustrate some of their leaves. I’ll leave it to you to identify them.
The leaves in the numbered images below (1-10) are all trees or vines around the Explore the Wild/Catch the Wind Loop. Most of the images were shot at the start of the third week of April, so the leaves will surely have grown since and may not look exactly like they did when the photos were taken. However, they all have the same characteristics when newly opened as when fully developed. Some of the identifications should jump right out at you, others, perhaps not. Good Luck. Don’t worry, the answers are at the bottom of the page.
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Leaf Answers (just in case you needed them)
- Black Locust
- Red Maple
- Eastern Cottonwood
- Flowering Dogwood
- Poison Ivy
- Redbud
- Tulip or Yellow Poplar
- Virginia Creeper
- American Sycamore
- Loblolly Pine (male cones, the source of all that pollen you saw covering everything, everywhere a few weeks ago)