Blooming Red Cedar, maybe.
Walking the trail today, I think of a dopey joke from a funny friend of mine that the month of May gets its name because it may rain, it may shine, it may sleet, it may snow. Today is most definitively a shine day. After a long, long, especially long winter, spring has arrived and is making herself known all around.
Green shoots are poking up in the brush, trees are sprouting little knobs and protuberances that will soon be buds and flowers and leaves. This tree is loaded! The golden, conelike tips of the branches are the gentleman strobili filled with yellow pollen which will be dispersed by the wind to land on the lady trees and start the process of making more trees.
"The dispersal of juniper seeds is effected by the plum and cherry plan of hiring birds at the cost of their board, and thus obtaining the use of a pair of extra good wings. "
John Muir
The fertilized seeds are eaten by birds where the digestive juices in the bird’s stomach soften the outer coat so it will be able to germinate. All this happens in a mere 12 minutes! After they are processed by the birds, the seeds fall to the warm earth and go into warm stratification for several months and then cold stratification over the winter. Next spring when the soil warms up the seed comes out of dormancy and sprouts - taaa daah! A new tree begins. Any seeds that don't follow the rules have less than 6% viability the following year - so maybe.
(Red Cedar, juniperus virginiana, is not a true cedar at all, but it’s technically a juniper - so maybe not.)
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