Yesterday's spring snow storm was warmly welcomed. Wednesday's evening sky told of the approaching storm. So....yesterday's morning sky...at 6:30am...looked like a watercolor painting....as it continued to shower down snow on the mountainsides....and on the mountain dogwood trees in Yosemite West. Yosemite's Mountain Dogwood tree, when in blossom, already reminds me of a beautiful tree covered with large snow flakes.....was now...covered with real snow flakes !!! as well.
Photographing these beautiful flowers was a special treat...made more beautiful by the snow...Beauty layered upon beauty. A sight of rare beauty for an already delicately beautiful flower. Mountain Dogwood, C. nuttallii, belongs to the Cornaceae Family or commonly called the Dogwood Family....and is found in the mountain woods below 6000 feet from April to July, in usual years. The fruit of the mountain dogwood...fleshy one seeded like a cherry... is edible raw or cooked.
I always want to know what John Muir may have written on any given subject...... "Some of the
involucres of
Nuttall's flowering dogwood measure six to eight inches in diameter, and the whole tree when in flower looks as if covered with snow. In the spring when the streams are in flood it is the whitest of trees. In Indian summer the leaves become bright crimson, making a still grander show than the flowers." from
The Yosemite by John Muir
"No botanist has visited so large a portion of the United States, or made such and amount of observations in the field and forest. Probably few naturalists have ever excelled him in aptitude for such observations, in quickness of eye, tact in discrimination, and tenacity of memory," wrote famed botanist Asa Gray about Thomas
Nuttall who lived from 1786=1859...and who named the mountain dogwood....Cornaceae
nuttallii !!!
Flowering Mountain Dogwood shout out....
Springtime is here !!!! whether it is snowing or not !!! The flowering dogwood invites us every spring to enjoy the beauty of its big white blossoms with its cluster of small yellow buds in the center. This is a lovely tree ! Its white flowery arms reach out to us every spring........
In Yosemite Valley, the month of May is usually the time when the Mountain Dogwood is in full bloom....and in Yosemite West about a month later. This year....spring arrived early. The first of the white blossoms in Yosemite West appeared in the middle of April....when I first began photographing them. I hope you enjoy seeing the dogwood on a sunny spring day...before the dog days of summer begin....and before yesterday's snow storm. In Yosemite West the Mountain Dogwood is stilling approaching....its full glory.
Yosemite Valley visitors have fond memories of waterfalls and dogwood blossoms. Dogwood loves water.....the banks of the Merced River, Happy Isles, Fern Spring, and along Tenaya Creek....Hetch Hetchy...and Yosemite West. Mountain Dogwood is a tree, yes, ....yet, its blossoms are always listed in Yosemite Wildflower books. The primary task of any plant is to produce seeds...which may be packaged as fruit....such as the dense fruit clusters of the dogwood... but, before the plant
goes to seed....there is the
beauty of the blossoms....to enjoy !!!
Are the showy snowflake looking parts of the mountain dogwood its flower....or not???
First Botany 101 with help from The Wilderness Press book :
A Sierra Nevada Flora by Norman Weeden, a professor of botany, Cornell University. It is a handy tote book...and provided the below definitions.
Seed....the part of a plant, containing the embryo, from which a new plant can grow.
- involucre....a whorl of several to many bracts subtending an inflorescence.
- inflorescence.... the cluster of flowers on a plant. Often more than one on a plant.
- Floret...a small flower in a dense head
- Petaloid....petal like
- Subtend... to be situated immediately below.
- Whorl.....three or more similar structures (leaves, bracts, petals, etc,) encircling a node.
- Node.....the joint of a stem where leaves, branches, or flowers arise.
- Bract....is a rudimentary leaf subtending a flower or flower cluster.
*****Sounds pretty scientific....just focus on the pretty.....and enjoy the beauty of the flowers.*****
The bracts which surround the Mountain Dogwood's center dense yellow cluster..... are pretty and white......and are not the petals.
- Petal...a usually brightly colored flower part located between sepals and stamens.
- Sepals....a usually green segment of the outer whorl of flower parts or calyx.
- Stamen...the pollen bearing structure of a flower, consisting of a filament, an anther and the pollen.
What is a flower or a blossom?
Flower....the reproductive structure of a large group of plants.
***So where if the dogwood's flower???***
The Mountain Dogwood's Flower... is located in the center....a tight cluster or head of many tiny florets......which turn lemon yellow when in BLOOM....and is...surrounded by the large white rudimentary leaves or bracts....petaloid bracts.
Perhaps, the bees see these white banners farther than they can catch the faint perfume. Watch the bee as she probes the center cluster of flowers for nectar......as she pollinates them. In the autumn.....the dogwood flower or rather the many tiny florets....go to seed....and a pretty cluster of bright red fruit appear. The many crimson fruit clusters on the tree are quite spectacular. The dense fruit cluster is redder than the whorl of leaves that surround them. The fruit clusters of the Mountain Dogwood are a favorite food for the ROBIN and other birds.
The Park visitors who experienced the beauty of the recent SPRING SNOW will have fond memories of flowering Mountain dogwood .....which always looks like it is covered with snow....when it
was actually adorned with fresh white snowflakes !!! Plan your visit to Yosemite.....to see the Mountain Dogwood in bloom.....right outside your window.....if you stay in a Scenic Wonder cabin....in beautiful mountain dogwood loving Yosemite West.
Another terrific day in Yosemite, sent by my iPad photos taken by my ipod w/o photoshop. bye for now, Laura
