Spring often takes us by surprise around here. But it's pretty hard to ignore. Not only do you start thinking about putting away the sweaters and bringing out the shorts, but you have these colorful reminders all over town...
 |
| another briefly-blooming redbud...this one on campus |
 |
| campus redbud in the foreground |
 |
| our neigbor's lovely ornamental pear |
 |
| bottlebrushes just getting brushy |
 |
| new blooms on campus yuccas |
 |
| baby pine cones |
One of the star performers every spring is the Texas mountain laurel. They spread their purple blossoms and grape-kool-aid aroma all over town.
But just to show that no matter how many springs you see, they can still teach you something, I happened to notice this mountain laurel variation on the grounds of the aptly-named Laurel Heights Methodist Church, near where I catch the bus each morning...
It's undoubtedly a mountain laurel, albeit with white blossoms. And if Silicon Valley would get on the stick and invent an HTML tag for smells, you'd see that it perfumes the air with the same scent as if it had grape-colored flowers. How about that?!
Here are some of the more common variants...
 |
| one of the church's more conventional trees |
 |
| a particularly rich crop of blooms, across the street from the church |
 |
| close-up of a specimen down the street |
 |
| an Olmos Park example |
Some of these beauties don't hang around too long, so you need to appreciate them when you see them. A good life lesson, eh?
No comments:
Post a Comment