It's so fluffy I'm gonna die!!

[glitch25]

This morning, I took a quick trip down memory lane talking about the cottonwood trees and the fact that the fluff is flying.

Where i grew up, our cottonwood trees didn't have fluff. At least not in the city. Outside of city limits, we'd see them sometimes. I remember Dad said that the fluff kind weren't allowed. Research tells me that there is an actual pollen ordinance on the books for ABQ that states that selling or planting various high pollen varieties of trees including those sorts of cultivars of poplars is punishable as a petty misdemeanor. Living in a dry climate is srs bznz. :-)

There were cultivars of Cottonwoods that don't produce the high amounts of pollen that were allowed by the ordinance. This includes the Rio Grande Cottonwood which was what I was most accustomed to seeing. We had the male variety in our yard, and much like the more pollen producing types, they dropped these floral pods that kinda resembled caterpillars that also had this sticky sap in the buds. Descriptions I see for these poplars in general is that they like to drop limbs unexpectedly. Even back home, this was true. Wind storms were a great way to find out how alive your cottonwood trees were. And in a lot of cases, how sturdy your roof is. :/

Another tree I grew up with is the bald cypress. For some reason, I had thought these were some variety of cedar, but no. They produce these funny little round cones, they have bark that sheds as they grow, and they also produce this significantly sticky sap that gets on everything. Our yard was landscaped with these cypress trees, and I remember the day my parents had them removed because they just made so much mess of the yard.

We also had a sour cherry tree that always produced lots of fruit. We would collect as much as we could and make pies and such. Very tart golden fruit with fire-engine-red skins.

We also had a spruce in the front yard that was a four-foot starter when my parents moved into the house when I was 1 year old, and later grew to 20-30 feet tall before it apparently became diseased and needed to be removed.

One other tree I distinctly remember were the sycamore trees. They grow these hard spikey seed-pods that break open and contain fluff and seeds. Kids would throw them at each other since they were also rather dense and would fly well. They also quickly discovered that if you broke open the pods and stuffed the contents down someone's shirt, that it would itch for hours. :/

Interesting the things you remember.

What sorts of trees were in your life when you were young?

Comments

[autographedcat]

I grew up in North Carolina, so....pine trees. Pine trees as far as the eye could see.

(There were lots of others, of course. My grandfather had an enormous magnolia tree in the backyard that had branches almost all the way down to the ground, so it was *aces* for climbing.)

[sheistheweather]

Douglas firs. We had 6; 5 in back, 1 in front. I named the back ones Eagle, Lady Emerald, Victoria, Loner, and Grandfather Tree. The front yard tree didn't have a name. We also had lilac bushes, 5 in front and one in back. We had two rhododenrons, an azalea, and a hydrangea.

[gfish]

Apple trees. We lived on a hill covered in a 100 year old orchard. Weird varieties you can't find any more, small and tangy and dusty tasting, with red veins running through the meat. Delicious, and particularly perfect for cider. Every fall a neighbor who had a press would hold a pressing day. (They had a dog named Ajax, though back then I only knew that as the name of a cleaning supply and thought it was an odd choice.) The apples were also great projectiles, earlier in the year. You'd cut a new branch into a nice springy switch, sharpen one end, then spear the hard, unripe apples onto them. Wiping this over your head threw the apple in a most satisfying way, like using an atlatl. It also left a series of distinct stains on your shirt, since you had to brace the apple against your chest to skewer it properly.