High Line Phase II

So despite the fact that the second phase of the High Line Park opened last summer, and I have been to NYC probably dozens of times since then, I had yet to visit the newest leg of the park, extending from 20th to 30th Street.  I finally got there last week (though sadly, idiotically, I forgot to bring a decent camera, so these pics are with my very old, very slow iPhone 3GS). 

For the most part, the second phase is more of the same, though there are some unusual changes to the previous plant palette (more on that in a future post).  But what I enjoyed seeing most was this fantastic bird coop/co-op.

Built with steel wires and rods, the structure most be relatively heavy (and thus stable) and no doubt it's on footings.  But yet the whole thing looks quite light.  It provides ample opportunity for perching and the assortment of small stakes and boxes allow passersby to deposit apple cores for the birds and for small amounts of water to collect.

My only frustration was that the bird apartments (there were two, on each side of the path) were placed, no: squeezed, on a straight and narrow part of the park, creating bottlenecking and traffic.  Not only does that placement stifle circulation, but I kinda want to see this structure over a larger area so that there's more opportunity for birds to visit, deposit seeds and create a more complete model of urban ecological succession, which is of course what the park is all about.  

The somewhat clumsy placement makes me wonder if this was not an add-on.  I can imagine a city agency or organization bringing this to the program after design was already complete, and the designers needing to struggle to find a place for it.  And don't get me wrong, I love the structure!  I just wish it didn't feel like it was shoehorned onto an existing design. 

Scrambled Egg Tree

Well, first off the requisite apology for such irregular blogging.  Sorry!

Okay, onward -- last spring, my Aunt sent me a bunch of images of plants, taken on her annual Florida winter vacation.  This morning, I received another dispatch from warmer climes with this photo attached:

As always, I had a quiet little thrill to immediately recognize it (since tropicals are relatively new additions to my plant palette) as Senna surattensis.  Of course, I didn't immediately remember that name, I recognized the tree by its common name, scrambled egg tree.  I just kinda love the Dr. Seussian quality of that name, though of course the eggs in question are not green.  It can also be referred to as bush senna, golden senna and glaucous cassia.  (Previously, the plant belonged to the Cassia genus, though has since been re-named Senna).  

Above, a grove of S. surattensis in Lanai.  As you can probably guess, this plant is in the Fabaceae/Leguminosae families -- the pinnately compound foliage and presence of long, flat pea pods are clues.  The tree is a tough species and does well as small street trees or works in smaller residential spots.  It blooms relatively easily though when it is not in bloom the plant can become a bit messy due to fallen flowers and pods.

Quercus...hemisphaerica?

More often than not, I find specimens (like Monday's Erica) while on a run, and I snap photos of them on a older version iPhone that is painfully slow and takes somewhat fuzzy pics.  Recently, on a run past Arlington Cemetery, I noticed these trees and decided to return with an actual real camera. 

The habit of the plant made me certain it was an oak, though I was surprised to see any evergreen oaks in our climate.  I had heard rumors that live oaks (Quercus virginiana) can survive up here but wasn't quite convinced this was that species.  (It should be noted that the use of virginiana as a species name doesn't literally mean of the state of Virginia, but simply of the colonies.  Canadensis is used for a similar purpose as well as occidentalis, which means 'western' and indeed the new world was west of Europe.)

Upon further look however, of photos of this plant and of Quercus virginiana, I became certain that they are not a match.  A quick look at my post on NYPAOS would illustrate how different the bark is on this species.  On Q. virginiana, the bark is corky and blocky, whereas this species has the shallowly fluted bark similar to a red oak (Quercus rubra). This was a great clue that perhaps this mystery species was in the red oak (or Loboatae) section of the genus.  After a bit of investigation, I'm tempted to identify this as Quercus hemisphaerica or laurel oak.  Everything I read on Dirr seems to help confirm this.  The plant is marginally hardy, loses its leaves around February (depending on the severity of the winter - and this one has been mild) and is generally a tough plant, used commonly as a street tree further south. 

Finally, as the common name implies, the leaves do look like laurel leaves.  I will have to watch this plant and take more pics when it forms acorns which should help confim the species.