Short Walks at Belmont - March 2015

Yesterday when I was at Belmont Manor and Historic Park the snow was gone and I made short walks during and after the short class I attended. One focus was to get pictures of the trees before the leafed out for a project I am working on to produce materials of a Belmont Tree Tour. But it was a nice day and I was easily side tracked. From a photographic perspective I am more interested in the close ups - like the English elm branch with buds, lichen and moss.

The bald cypress by the pond is interesting because it is a surprise. It is a survivor north of the usual range for the tree. It is easy to identify even in winter because of the knees and fallen needles.

The swallows seemed to be taking over the blue bird boxes. This pair seems to be very proprietary about this particular box already. They both would fly away and return to the same box again and again.

There we shelf fungi growing on a tree that was upright but appeared dead - or near dead.

Some of the interior was hollow and exposed - cracking along ring lines and other trunk structures.

As I walked along nearer the manor house there were periodic patches of crocus. At my house the bulbs have not started blooming quite yet.

The wind had blown some sycamore seeds down. The ones on the tree were too high to get good pictures so it was a bonus to get the pictures. This is one tree I can identify from the bark!

Southern Magnolias are easy to identify too. They keep their leaves and already have buds.

There was also an empty seed pod from last season on the ground - probably blown off by the wind just as the sycamore seeds were blown.

Some trees have places where large branches were cut that are fractured much like the dead tree…but are very much alive. This was from an English Elm that appears to be surviving well enough.

Last but not least - I hiked into the forest to take a look at another magnolia. I’d been told it was a cucumber magnolia but none of the trees is large - they are all in the understory. I’ll have to watch it as it blooms.  It may be an umbrella magnolia instead.