Friday, March 21

What Is This Beauty?

I thought last year it was apple, because of the blossoms. But then, that's why I have to post here for help. Obviously, I don't know an apple blossom from a horse apple. Soooo... Help me out, here.

This is the tree. I circled it in red, and marked the 3' height on the cedar stave in the fence beside it, just to give you an idea of how Eiffel Tower-ish this thing is. I imagine it's either something that grows wild, or, if it's a domesticated plant, it's been neglected for a long, long time. It does bear fruit - there was some left on it from last year's late frost - but I didn't get a good photo of those. (Click on the photo to see a larger image.)
The bark is tight - would this be called "tight scales"?
The leaves - oh, look at that vibrant green of new leaves! They grow in clusters, as you can see here...
And these are the blossoms. Such a brilliant white, and in large clusters of many blooms. They're not terribly hardy, and when the wind kicks up, it looks like it's snowing.
So, fellow readers, any ideas what this tree may be?

9 comments:

mere said...

That looks like a plum tree to me. Looks just like my neighbors plum tree out back. Does it smell sweet? Is it attracting bees?

Hey, maybe you'll hold out til Sunday and we'll share TWO birthdays in our families...Jake's is Sunday.

I hope for your sake you don't though. I know the suspense is way worse on you than it is on us!
Still praying for you.

mere

Stephanie not in TX said...

My guess is some kind of pear. can you describe the fruit you found last year?

Staci Eastin said...

I was going to say pear as well. The blossums on my Bradford Pear look just like that.

Jennie C. said...

It reminds me of my plum tree, except that yours is enormous.

pilgrimama said...

Dy, last November when our daughter was born, after a day or two of sleeping a lot, things finally got serious. I hope when it gets rolling, it moves right along.The restless stage is tough,at least for me! Marcella

Amy said...

Hey, Dy, I'm in agreement that it looks like a pear.

I was thinking maybe you could get Zorak to share his chile relleno recipe with us. He could do that while you are otherwise occupied. I love chile rellenos, but have never made them. I'd like to try, though.

Praying that all is well there.

P.S. My birthday is Sunday, so that would be okay!

Jules said...

Dy - check out this link:
http://www.psd267.wednet.edu/~kfranz/Science/Science2000/trees/springtrees.html

It may help you figure it out.

Dy said...

Jules, wow, that was a neat page! Thank you. I wish they'd taken pictures of the bark of the trees - that would have cinched it. However, when James gets back from practice, I'll ask him for his tree ID book. (We still get overwhelmed trying to use it from the first step. *sheepish grin*) I'm leaning heavily toward plum, which would be fantastic!

Amy, I'll get the recipe and post it. He got it from his Mom, and they are fantastic!

Marcella, thanks for the encouragement. Yeah, restless really has no place in a house full of kids, does it? ;-)

Steph, the fruit was stunted when the frost killed it, so it looked a lot like all the other stunted fruit on the property from last year. It still had a bit of the flower on the end, a bulb that narrowed into an almost stem-like shape as it approached the branch. It was about half the length of the dead pears from our "verified" pear tree. Unfortunately, it was black and dried up when we found it, so the color/scent were gone. Does that help any?

Wow - two birthdays on Sunday! I guess Easter Sunday would be a fine day to be born, no? :-)

And hey, hopefully we'll have fruit off this thing sometime this summer! That'd be fun. Thanks for playing along, guys.

Dy

Mom2legomaniacs said...

I was going to say it looks Bradford Peary. So my guess was in that family.

Sending some good contraction thought your way to get this thing going. Oh, I am just so thrilled for you!

melissa