before the rains

Before the rains came and clobbered everything, there was a noticeable appearance of butterflies and flowers. The former included Tiger Swallowtails, Red Admiral and Little Wood-Satyr, the last-named not as spectacular as the others but an insect with character (and owl-ish eye spots).

On the flower front, Black Cherry, Dame's Rocket and various Rubus are in full display while the first roses are coming in. Several trees are in flower including Honey Locust, Catalpa and Horse Chestnut but my favorite, by far, is the Big-leaf Magnolia. There is a stand of these prehistoric trees in the woods just off our property and they send up huge floppy white flowers that will turn into pineapple-like seed cones later in the season. This tree is what I call an almost-native but it is not common in its southern range (it is even considered to be threatened in some places) and I find it strange that it does so well here! The Magnolias are considered a fairly primitive form of flowering tree, having evolved before there were bees to pollinate anything; they are more-or-less transitional between the evergreens and the flowering trees.

A lot of small flowers are in bloom right now but I'm going to have to make some serious efforts to figure out what they are.

Eric Salzman