on the berm

We had a chance to walk along the top of the berm that runs along PPW this week, I like to think of it as the neighborhood's closest thing to the Appalachian trail. We found an evergreen weeping sap, a tree with a hidden charcoal-black recess, varieties of pine cones and needles, bottle caps and some rusted batteries. My daughter and I will go back and clean those up, and my son would like to but is worried about being caught in the act and considered a 'dork.' Don't judge him, though, he reminds me of how many young people must think it's cool to litter and uncool to bend over and pick something up. Often it seems that to be read as "good" by another is the last thing person wants, perhaps it even seems vaguely dangerous.

I saw a man on a subway platform suddenly drop a dollar on the ground, and at first he showed great concern, although he didn't bend over to pick it up. As soon as he saw other people had noticed, and when another man bent over to pick up the dollar and hand it back to him, the man acted as if he wouldn't condescend to touch that dollar. Is this pride in action? Is it an atavistic instinct to fear that as soon as one bends over another will see this as a sign of submissiveness and subserviance, just like pack animals read each other's behavior for signs of weakness? People are complicated and there's much to understand about why someone would throw or drop something on the ground and neglect to pick it up, and another would gladly collect it without worrying about how they'll be viewed. We all seem to be wrapped in layers of our values, conditioning, and instincts so thickly that we can't really understand each other's choices and tendencies very well. Seriously, call in the anthropologists, this city is full of diverse tribes.

What makes someone volunteer to pick up other people's garbage in Prospect Park? I would wager it's often LOVE for the park, plain and simple. Thanks to the park volunteers.

in the trees

Leaf Collection at the E. 4th Street Community Garden

Some call leaves "tree litter." You can too if you like! I suppose they could also be called soil if your clock is a fast one and you're thinking a few years ahead. If you are of that disposition then you might like to know that the E. 4th St. is encouraging you to bring your rakings over to their NYC leaf initiative heap. Information below. The E. 4th St. garden is East of Ft. Hamilton Parkway in Kensington.

East 4th street community garden is a designated drop off point for leaf recycling as part the the NYC leaves initiative. We invite you to bring us your bagged leaves during the dates and times posted below. Please use clear plastic or brown paper bags. No branches, twigs or trash.

Sunday 11/14: 12pm-2pm

Saturday 11/20: 11am-1pm
Sunday 11/21: 12pm-2pm

Saturday 11/27: 11am-1pm
Sunday 11/28: 12pm-2pm

ashes ashes

On the West side of my street grow many ashes. The ones closer to my house have leaves that turn yellow, and most of these trees have lost their leaves already. Farther down the ashes are still thick with petticoats of yellow leaves while the leaflets closer to the crown are sun caramelized to a deep red. To see these trees' flaming bleed once every year is worth the wait.

sylvie's trees

I don't know this child, but her drawings stood out from all the others on the bulletin board. What strong trees Sylvie drew! It is amazing how resolved they feel and how flooded with vitality and strength. They have a bit of that pollarded look that fascinates me; I often wonder what it is about that bizarre form that's so compelling.

mudra

Unrelated observation: I like very much what Jodi Dean wrote on her blog the other day, "Fullness suggests totalitarian capture. Split involves alienation. More alienation could be a good thing." A parallax ax is as dangerous as it sounds! Long live studied ambiguity and the vertigo of inconclusiveness in which we flail when reflective thought accepts complexity.

Sweet Gum

As Xris pointed out on the recent tree tour, Liquidambar sytaciflua reveals a surprisingly acrobatic spectrum of colors this time of year.

River Birch and Shadblow

Two more trees featured in last Saturday's Victorian Flatbush Tree Tour, at top the bark of a River Birch, one of the few trees whose trunk elicits the word plush, and the salmon-colored leaves of the Shadblow or Serviceberry. Xris explained the tree is named for coming back to life so early in the spring, blooming when the Shad spawn, when the newly thawed earth permits the undertaker's shovel.

rain mix

Maybe you've seen it too, dazzling yellow and gold on the wet dark ground today, under locusts, pinnates of yellow that would incinerate a Vuillard, that have a lesson even for Ofili's auras. An acquaintance passing by me in my confoundment didn't get it, I will have to choose candidates for euphoria more carefully.

On the train a friend took objection to the Horace's observation that "nothing is beautiful from every angle." She answered "Maybe a sphere." Then she taught me some new interesting words, euonym (well suited name) and caconym (badly chosen name), courtesy of her son who studies linguistics at Colorado State.

Argyle St. London Plane

On the Sustainable Flatbush tree tour led by the Flatbush Gardener Chris Kreussling and Tracey Hohman, we passed this ancient London Plane with an appetite for metal.

Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurret: You can throw out Nature with a pitchfork, but she'll always turn up again.

Osage Kush

Polyphemus

Polyphemus, the name of a cyclops, means famous. At first I thought this was the caterpillar of a Luna Moth, but those are spottier. This looks to be the last instar of the late summer brood of this variety of Giant Silk Moth (Saturniidae,) and it may winter in its chrysalis. I wish we'd kept it, but we took it to an Oak in Prospect Park, worried that it wouldn't last the hot dry sidewalk of Ft. Hamilton it was about to cross.

After the disappearance of the Parsley Worm our dill plant hosted last week, I don't want to take so many chances with caterpillars anymore, the are too precious. The worms have me wrapped around their fingers. Here's what this beauty will look like if she makes it.

Pagoda trees

These late flowering trees make me feel like I'm seeing double into a daymare of cloying Renoir fecundity bleeding into a pointillist rift in the conventional street view, but that's ok, I'm learning that my slight nausea is a form of fascination. It would all be much worse if I came upon the specimen in Beijing called The Guilty Chinese Scholar tree, where the last Ming Emporer, shamed by the peasant infiltration of the Forbidden City, hung himself. But what was the Chinese Scholar so guilty about?

speedy nesters

I think these stylish creatures, elegant in black and pale yellow, are Bald faced Hornets–you can see one peeking out of the mouth of the nest. This structure was not in evidence as of last Friday when I saw a gardener hard at work to discourage the builders, to no avail. The hornet below, perhaps from a different swarm, found with its nose to moist wood at Lefferts last week.

Legumelicious

Looks like another tree in the pea family is in bloom. Fab-aceae is right! Also sweet smelling like the Black Locusts (Robinia Pseudoacacia) blooming everywhere, but with much broader, softly diamond shaped pointed leaflets. I came across two of the trees thriving on the berm along Prospect Park Southwest, shading the pebbled concourse beneath it where I walk the kids to school.

I suspect the flowers could be called Papilionaceous, in which case the petal that backs the others and soars upward, and curls adorably backward in this species, would be called a banner. The two outer petals that dangle into the open air beneath it are the wings, and the central part, composed of two probably fused petals, the keel. The whole five petaled structure is a corolla. And so she sails.

Just in from Prospect Park: "according to one of our experts, looks like a: yellowwood—Cladrastis lutea" Thanks!!

For Mrs. Rousseau and her Babies

Yesterday I came across this flowering tree working its magic on the evening air - I think it's a Black Locust, and if you wander into the park this weekend, no doubt you'll smell them too. There's two small ones on the path from Vanderbilt St. to the lake, and many others I'm sure.

In On Kindess there's mention that the French philosopher and proponent of the idea of children's innate goodness, Jean-Jaques Rousseau, sent his 5 infants to an orphanage (where they most likely died) because he believed "his wife's family would ruin them." Wikipedia claims that he did this to preserve their mother's "honor." The irony. How did Therese Levasseur and everyone else involved maintain their sanity? I suppose that with a 50% infant mortality rate in Paris in the 18th Century, perhaps people became very good at keeping themselves from getting attached. Maybe this partly explains the era's high rate of wet nursing.

tree fun

It seems that Mr. Fun, E.O. Harbin, whose 1968 The Fun Encyclopedia is out of print, also knew lots about tree characteristics he describes in a series of quiz questions in the chaper Fun Outdoors. Below is a sample of the fun. So, what tree?

I am a small tree with large leaves crowded on the stem. I am a close relative of the large magnolia.

My leaves vary from fourteen to twenty-two inches in length by alternate, simple, narroly peared or ovate, pointed at both ends, smooth and fall in the autumn with little change in color.

My flower is creamy white, ill-scented, cup-shaped, with petals six to nine inches long. A whorl of leaves usually surround the flower.

My fruit is rose-colored when ripe, from two to four inches long, cylindrical or cone-shaped, consisting of small capsules, each containing a red seed about one-half inch in length.

My bark is thin, light ray, smooth, and roughened by irregular protruding portions.

My wood is light, soft, light brown in color, and of little practical value. I am planted for ornamental purposes and resemble a rainy-day favorite.

apricot on the wane

Shocked to notice the other day that the Apricot tree that was full of blooms a month ago has grown leaves on only a scant percentage of its branches. It's not looking good for this lovely thing. The pear across from it is thriving, though.



This is the book I've been getting the line drawings from - W.H. Wise & Co., Inc. New York, 1951. I found it under the hoop tree along with a book on metal working and plumbing from 1945. I assume they're out of print.

pinkcandescence on 3rd street

They're here!

Gink, Baby!