Aloha!

Please excuse the delinquency of this post!  I've been traveling and have been taking TONS of pics.  I just need to organize and post them. 

I'm working in Lanai at the moment, doing some consulting work, helping a community develop strategies to be "greener" (i.e., cutting back on irrigation, using more natives, etc.).

In the meantime, I saw this rainbow, shortly after landing in Honolulu!  Aloha!

Excuses

This is probably the first full week I've gone without blogging in quite some time.  Especially as far as unscheduled time off goes. 

I'm sorry to say my grandmother passed away yesterday, four months and four days shy of her 101st birthday.  I loved her very much and am fortunate to have so many wonderful memories of her.  She was born and raised in Philadelphia, the youngest of 7 older brothers and 1 older sister.  She had 11 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.  I blogged about her once before, on NYPAOS.

She had been in hospice care since Sunday so I had been spending as much time up in Philly as possible and thus, no blog.

 

Marian Gallagher, née Scannapieco, was a big contributor to the St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.  Her refrigerator was covered with stickers of the young, ill children she wanted to help.  If you'd like to make a donation in her name, please do. St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital, Tribute Program P.O. Box 1000 Dept. 142, Memphis, TN 38148 or donations may be phoned in by calling 800-822-6344.  Please refer to Tribute # 27895177 when calling.  Mail in donations should include both the tribute # and Marian Gallagher’s name.  

We'll get back to plants starting Monday -- please come back to planted cloud then.  Thanks! 

Carissa macrocarpa

Carissa macrocarpa or natal plum is a plant you're likely to encounter in the tropics as it's unusual in fulfilling various purposes.  One, it's quite thorny and is often used as a barrier.  Two, it takes to pruning very well and can be trimmed into a hedge shape without much trouble.  Three, it's absolutely salt and wind proof.  If you've ever been to the Halekulani in Waikiki, or walked past the beachfront restaurant, you've passed a manicured hedge of  Carissa.

Finally, reason number four is the plant is quite attractive, as far as somewhat stiff hedge-like plants go.  The pinwheels of white flowers look almost like jasmine and are faintly faintly fragrant. 

All the time I spent walking past the specimen at the Halekulani, and damn if I can't find a photo of the plant's habit.  I only have these close-ups from Puerto Rico.  Next time, I promise.

From New York

Wow, it's 10am and I haven't published a post yet.  What am I thinking?  Well, an excuse: I had counted on the bolt bus I took yesterday to have wifi and sadly, it was out of order.  So no chance to publish on my way to New York and then once I got here, it was a busy agenda of meetings and then a very nice dinner with my good friends, an evening far too nice to worry about self-imposed deadlines...

Anyway, here I am and before I head out for another busy day, I'll post a few links I'd like to recommend, to feed your horticultural cravings.

Alice Joyce writes Bay Area Tendrils and her most recent post marks her two year "Blogoversary."  Alice's blog has been a favorite of mine since I began blogging. 

Second, this afternoon I'm looking forward to checking out the new David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center.  It features a green wall that I'd like to check out.  Speaking of green walls, don't wonder why I've been blogging so much about Longwood Gardens and haven't written about their new green wall, the largest in the US.  That's to come sometime next week. 

Happy Friday!

Snowy Cedrus deodara

Some of you may have noticed that I have a tag called "iPhone Pics."  That's not a blatant ad for Steve Jobs, so much as a contrived way to make excuses for less-than-stellar photos.  Like this one, taken from the front seat of my car, on Glebe Road in Arlington.

 

Despite the crummy picture, I wanted to post it since I had recently written about Cedrus deodara and realized, after contemplating this mostly-lovely (though limbed-up) specimen in an otherwise uninspiring landscape, how nicely the branches hold snowfall.  

In contrast, take Cedrus atlantica glauca or blue atlas cedar, growing off Columbia Pike (below).  The shorter needles mean the plant holds less snow and as a result is largely unaffected by the weather. 

Here's another deodar cedar, standing kitty corner to the blue atlas.  This time the tree hasn't been limbed up, but it is crowded by the white pine (Pinus strobus) to the right. 

Sycamore Maple and Incestuous Nomenclature

First of all, apologies.  It's already after 5 on a Tuesday and I've yet to update this site.  I'm in New York until tomorrow and have been a bit overrun with meetings and catching up with some good friends.  But I still managed to get in a run in Central Park yesterday and today.  

 

I stopped to take these shots of sycamore maple, or Acer pseudoplatanus, since we've been covering trees with fall color quite a bit lately and this tree is probably at its peak. As you can see, while the leaves are not as fiery as its cousin, Acer saccharum, they are a fairly clear, bright yellow.  The leaves are also serrated, unlike sugar maple, Norway maple, or even hedge maple.  Acer rubrum, or red maple, also has serrated leaves, as do other species in the genus, but I've yet to post on them.  But, if you're familiar with red maple leaves, you may notice that the leaf below is a broader shape, with five distinct lobes, whereas A. rubrum often has trident-like leaves.  The lobes on sycamore maple also are a touch fatter or wider at the mid-point; red maple lobes consistently taper in size and are widest near the middle of the leaf, narrowing to the points.  Finally, and perhaps obviously, red maple leaves this time of year are usually, well, red.

Sycamore maple is called thus because the bark has a thick, scaly bark similar to sycamore (Platanus occidentalis).  And here's a good example where nomenclature can get a touch confusing:

London plane tree is Platanus x. acerifolia and the species name is indicating the leaves look like Acer, or maple.

Norway maple is called Acer platanoides because the leaves look like london plane tree, or Platanus x. acerifolia.

Sycamore maple is called Acer pseudoplatanus because the bark (below) looks like sycamore (and probably because platanoides was already taken!).

The whole thing gets a bit cyclical, like a flawed math formula, doesn't it?

The tree is not native and while it is not as outrageously invasive as Norway maple, it can conquer over natives due to its high tolerance to salt, drought and wind.  It's just that resilience which lead to the plant being brought here from Europe and Southwest Asia, sometime in the late 19th century.