This Week's Mystery Plant

"In an early spring we see the appearing buds; Which to prove fruit, hope gives not so much warrant as despair That frosts will bite them."

I'm just like Lord Bardolph, in Shakespeare's Henry the Fourth (part two), who was afraid that just as soon as the new buds start to show, a cold spell will come along and "nip" them.

The season now is hard to figure: is it late winter or early spring? Lots of folks, especially those of us with a bad case of cabin-fever, want to lean toward the latter, and surely there are already plenty of buds--and opening flowers--visible on our landscape.

These red flowers are produced by the millions, on trees. It is a native species that is common all over South Carolina, in every county. This tree is as much at home on high ground as it is in our deepest swamps. It doesn't mind having its feet wet, and the base of the trunk will commonly be submerged during spring floods, with no harm done. Otherwise, it is common as well in our sandhills and mountain forests.

Its bark is gray and smooth, although on big trees the bark becomes fissured and split. The leaves are roughly three-lobed, somewhat resembling what you'll see on the flag of Canada. As they unfold, the leaves may be bright red, eventually greening up on the top, and with a whitish lower surface. In the fall, the leaves turn red again: it's one of our nicest species for autumn color.

Back to the flowers, though. An individual tree will generally have only male flowers, as in this photo, producing plenty of pollen, or female flowers, which eventually produce red, winged, one-seeded fruits. (Occasionally, a given tree will have both male and female flowers.)

Whether male or female, the individual flowers tend to be fairly inconspicuous. But when massed together, the trees take on a pink or red hue, which is very conspicuous. This floral display is especially prominent in swampy habitats, easy to notice if you are cruising down the road at 55 mph: that's what that reddish-pink haze is outside. (Photo by Linda Lee.)

Photo by Linda Lee