I took a walk in the woods late today. I didn’t bother to bring my camera. Not only was the light failing, but I didn’t want to pause to take pictures, because pausing gives mosquitoes a chance to bite. I don’t like mosquito bites at any time, but I like them even less when the EEE virus is a concern, as it is now (but not for much longer, because it’s been getting cold at night).
Anyway, walking nonstop gave me a chance to think about trees. I’ve been too busy identifying wildflowers to give the trees any love, and that’s not right. They deserve more attention. I should learn to identify them reliably, especially the ash, so that I can enjoy it while it lasts. The emerald ash borer is here, and nothing can be done to stop it. All of our ashes are going to die.
As I walked on the path, I looked for trees that might be ashes. My guess was that they were the trees with leaves shaped similarly to beeches and birches, but arranged differently on the branches. They don’t have the silvery-smooth bark of a beech or the horizontal marks that birch bark does. I found several such trees out there. Looking at my New England field guide now, my guess is black ash.
Browsing through the guide, the other trees and shrubs I believe I’ve seen here include red maple, sugar maple, Eastern white pine, sweet birch, American beech, Northern red oak, a whole lotta other oaks, some type of cedar, sassafras, shagbark hickory, blueberry, arrowwood, spicebush, multiflora rose, and sweet pepperbush. Now is a good time for taking pictures of foliage, and in some cases, fruit and nuts, so I will try to devote more time to that and to identifying our local trees.