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Monday, June 8, 2009

Another Surprise from the Jack Pine


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Do you happen to remember that I'm not a big fan of jack pine? It's usually scrawny, mis-shapen and missing a bunch of its needles. Well, today I had another surprise from the trees growing near the railroad tracks.

The day was gray, and yet bright. We had a lot of rain last night, and everything was wet which sometimes seems to deepen the colors.

All the evergreens are working hard on new growth and new pine cones right now. As I passed those scraggly jack pines I glanced at them, and I guess with new eyes, because here was the delightfully contrasting scene when I focused on the branches.

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Here is a closeup of the "clusters." Note the stalks of new, light green needles sprouting from the center of each bunch of baby cones.

And finally, just because I liked how it looked, late this afternoon the fog came in and made everything beyond the quaking aspens disappear!

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See New Look at a Jack Pine

5 comments:

Rick (Ratty) said...

These pine trees don't look like any I've ever seen. I saw some unusual ones recently too. I tried to take pictures of their new pine cones, but my camera wasn't cooperating.

Daisy said...

Ohh what lovely moist morning.... *sigh*

Sharkbytes said...

Hi Ratty- The jack pine are mostly in the mid and upper parts of Michigan. They love to grow in sand, and boy do we have sand!

Daisy- Thanks for stopping by. It was indeed lovely.

Glynis Peters said...

What lovely pictures. We have a few fog days in Feb, when the vineyards will look like your pine tree picture. I have not seen a Jack pine before, how pretty they look.

Sharkbytes (TM) said...

Hi Glynis- Sometimes the foggy days are magical!