It's a death-defying act you won't believe

[sovay]

I had to mask up to drop something off for the upstairs neighbors, so I took my camera and went to check on the neighborhood index of flowering trees.



The cherry blossoms have achieved liftoff!



Also backlighting.



Ready for their close-up.



I had previously believed this tree to be another, earlier-flowering cherry, but a bandanna-masked passerby spotted me with my camera and cheerfully told me to check out "the beautiful almond tree at the end of the street." So now I have no idea. It's pink.



Shadow tree.



Shadow ladder and reflection tree.



This magnolia just seemed so enthusiastic.



And I haven't a clue, but it was extravagantly green.

Today was the first day I've really seen a majority of people wearing masks on the streets—some handmade, some medical, some kerchiefs and scarves. Boston has instituted a curfew and the federal government is just straight-up trying to kill us. At the moment cases are predicted to peak over the week of Passover. I hope the holiday holds true to its name.

Comments

[sovay]

Flowers!!!

I wanted to share.

[yhlee]

I have flowers in the neighborhood, but this being Louisiana, they are completely different flowers. =D

[sovay]

I have flowers in the neighborhood, but this being Louisiana, they are completely different flowers.

What kinds of flowers do you have in Louisiana?

[yhlee]

...I'm ass at botany so I only recognize some of the garden-flowers (and also we have a draconian HOA in this neighborhood): snapdragons, roses (mostly red, I don't know what kind otherwise; I also have yellow ones in my garden), pansies, jasmine. I swear there's at least one magnolia in the neighborhood.

Mostly, the flowers I know are Korean (in which case if I know their names it's their Korean names), which does me no good here in a completely different climate. XD

[sovay]

Mostly, the flowers I know are Korean (in which case if I know their names it's their Korean names), which does me no good here in a completely different climate.

I don't know if I know anything about Korean flowers, so I'm sill impressed.

I know a lot more trees by sight than I know by name, I'm discovering. "Oh, look, it's another one of those . . . small clustered white blossoms with tiny green leaves on a lot of twigs of smooth silvery bark, okay."

[yhlee]

In spring the first flowers to bloom are the gaenari (forsythia)--four-petaled yellow flowers, and the interesting thing about them according to my mom is the flowers come first, then fall off, then the leaves bud green. We also get azaleas in hot magenta and white and pink. The national flower is the mugunghwa, whose common name in English is, for some reason, Rose of Sharon (which fails to sound Korean at all, a problem I have had for ages when trying to write about it in English-language fiction). There are also black locusts and acacias--the acacias are particularly fragrant in the summer, although I am not sure if they are native. (I know of one magnolia tree in Korea, at my old high school, and I'm POSITIVE it was a transplant. Bloomed beautifully, though.) Cosmos flowers, sunflowers.

Beyond flowers, there are also willow trees, sycamores, oaks, Japanese maples, white pines...

Korea is heartstoppingly beautiful in the springtime because there are flowers everywhere, often growing wild, and again in the autumn, when all the deciduous trees turn color. I have not seen Korea in spring or autumn since I was a teenager, because of the timing of winter break and my other visits. Maybe someday.

[sovay]

The national flower is the mugunghwa, whose common name in English is, for some reason, Rose of Sharon (which fails to sound Korean at all, a problem I have had for ages when trying to write about it in English-language fiction).

Oh! I'm pretty sure that's rose mallow in the UK, if that helps. That's a nice national flower and I agree that the translation is unhelpful, especially since Biblically I think it's supposed to be a lily or something.

I have not seen Korea in spring or autumn since I was a teenager, because of the timing of winter break and my other visits. Maybe someday.

I hope so. And then I can ask you to take pictures for me.

Thank you for this catalogue of flowering things.

[genarti]

Forsythia! They were always a sign of spring to me, when I was a kid in southern Ohio. First snowdrops, then crocuses and daffodils and forsythia bushes. All these small low flowers (daffodils less than the others, but still) and then the great bursts of sprawling yellow. I'm very fond of them.

[sovay]

I'm very fond of them.

I didn't put this picture in the original post because it didn't do what I wanted, visually, but:

[sporky_rat]

The national flower is the mugunghwa, whose common name in English is, for some reason, Rose of Sharon (which fails to sound Korean at all, a problem I have had for ages when trying to write about it in English-language fiction).

Funnily enough, my papaw brought home a Rose of Sharon from Korea when he was there in the 50's. (Yes indeedy, he smuggled a plant to the US. It and it's descendants have been in our yards since.)