學寫英文--dogwood山茱萸

The first spring day in north hemisphere fell on 3/20, but experience told me CT residents will not feel the real spring until 4/15, one or two passing snows or even snow storms still might be here in early April, as what happened in the last a few years.

But the reality is the weather didn’t go as what I have prepared. With a few passing showers, the weather was stable and the temperature was seasonable in the first week of April. During school spring break, I took my son to California, for fulfilling a high-tech dreamer’s dream by visiting some big name companies in Silicon Valley. As an immature high school kid, he said in US, there are only two areas he admires and holds huge enthusiasm to visit, NYC and California (Silicon Valley area I bet).

It was a very nice day in our town when we left for California on 4/8. in the breez and under the sunshine, yellow daffodils were blooming gorgeously here and there, easily catching peoples’ eyes; occasionally white or purple crocus flowers could be seen in between the dry fallen leaves from last year or beside the daffodil blooms; small red flowers from red maple trees dotted the blue sky, made me think about the split sunset clouds resting on the bare twigs of the trees.  Spring was coming, it’s just the commence of spring, the spring with abundant colorful flowers on the ground and in the air is still on the way.   

 

Six days later, on April 13^th, when we came back from San Francisco to our home in CT, I was stunned by the spring scenes. Red maple’s red flowers gone, came the helicopter-shaped red fruits; crabapple, cherry blossom, plum, forsythia, magnolia, Norway maple all bloomed  and the grasses greened up vigorously dotted with a handful of wild flowers.

A week later (4/20), with the fading of the early cherry blossoms, Eastern red bud and flowering dogwood began blossoming.

taken the 2nd week of April,2022 in our neighorhood, CT

I visited my friend last weekend.  Thinking about the dogwood outside her deck, I walked there, expecting to see some flower buds or cute flowers on the tree. But what surprised me was, there were only bare twigs in the tree, no flowers, no leaves as what I expected. The tree was still in the  winter mode!  After a momentary shock, I began thinking it understandable. Based on my observation, I think there should be three types of dogwood in this area. They have different flowering seasons, they bloom one after the other, covering the seasons from early spring to late summer. Because of this, I even thought the ancester of dogwood so thoughtful, they purposely evoloved into various types of dogwood, let them bloom in different seasons, so people can appreciate the beauty of dogwood as long as possible. "you know there are different types of dogwoods, a kind of dogwood is starting blooming. yours may take couple more weeks."

"you know there are different types of dogwoods, a kind of dogwood is starting blooming. yours may take couple more weeks." I told my friend.

"You are an expert!"

The following contents are quoted from an article.

"Dogwoods are among the most beautiful trees found in American landscapes, but ot all types are suitable for the garden. There are 17 species of dogwood native to North America, the four most comment garden types are native flowering dogwoods, Pacific dogwood, Cornelian Cherry dogwood, and kousa dogwoods. The latter two are introudced species that have earned a place in American gardens becasue they are more disease resistant than native species. Other native species are best left in teh wild becasue of their coarse texture or unruly habit. Here let's look at the four differnt types of dogwood trees best suited to cultivated landscapes. 

1.Flowering Dogwood.(Cornus florida)

This beautiful tree is interesting all year, with pink or white flowers in early spring, fillowed by attactive green foliage. In late summer, the leaves turn dark red and bright red berries appear in place of the flowers. the berries are an important food for several types of wildlife, including many species of songbirds. In the winter, teh tree has an attractive silhouette with small buds at the tips of the branches. 

Native to the Eastern U.S., this handsome tree thrives in USDA plant hardiness zones 5 through 9. 

 

先開花，再長葉

 

Fowering dogwood的果實是很多種歌唱鳥的食物edible and a food source for many songbirds.

2. Kousa Dogwood(我稱其為Asian Dogwood)

Native to China, Japan, and Korea, the kousa dogwood(Cornus kousa) is very similar to the flowering dogwood. The first difference you will notice is that the leaves appear before the flowers, and the tree flowers a couple of weeks later than the flowering dogwood. The fall fruit looks like raspberries and it is edible if ou can tolerate teh mealy texture. 

3. Pacific Dogwood.

Pacific dogwood grows on teh West Coast in a band between San Francisco and British Colubia. Unfortunately, it doesn't thrive in the east. It's a taller and more upright tree than the flowering dogwood. 

Taken in Yosemite valley, Yosemite National Park, Nevada.拍了這種樹花，是因為它像東部的DOGWOOD。對照網上的圖片，這就是幼年的Pacific dogwood. 

4. Cornelian Cherry Dogwood

Cornelian cherry dogwood is an European species, although it looks raggedby the end of the season in areas with hot summers. You can grow it as a small tree or a tall, multi-stmmed shrub.

It blooms in late winter or very early spring, with the yellow blossoms making their appearance before early spring-bloomers such as forsythia. YOu can use the cherry-like fruit in preserves.

沒學習，無論如何也沒想到這原來也是一棵dogwood。從這戶人家庭院的landscape 看出主人定是與眾不同，也就無怪乎會選這裏少見的cornelian dogwood了。

5. Venus dogwood.花葉同時生長。