Flowering pear trees in midtown Manhattan, New York City, April 2013.
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning. . . .— William Wordsworth, “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802“
When we arrived back in Washington, D.C., in the first week of April, I enjoyed the flowers of the tulip magnolias. They were practically the only blooms in the still wintery landscape.
Although I believe what I was calling ‘tulip’ magnolias were really saucer magnolias (Magnolia x soulangeana), which are a hybrid of tulip or Mulan magnolia (M. liliiflora) and Yulan magnolia (M. denudata).
At DACOR-Bacon House, about two blocks west of the White House, I took a lot of photos of two magnolia trees that are planted at the tops of retaining walls, so that the lower blooms are right at eye level.
One of the best places in Washington to enjoy this tree blooming (or leafed out and casting shade) is the Moongate Garden of the Smithsonian’s Enid A. Haupt Garden.
And that Washington flower, the pink magnolia tree, blooms now/ In little yards, its trunk a smoky gray. . . .
— James Schuyler, from “Hymn to Life“
Our garden, April 22, 2013.
The seeds are probably from the pictured Pyrethrum daisies (pictured), which may be feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium).
enclos*ure 