Spring is here. For our friends up north, it is very very welcome. In spite of the fact that we have "perpetual" summer, we do have seasons. They are much more subtle, but we do have them.
We don't have any true deciduous trees, like maples or oaks, that lose their leaves in the fall and then re-leaf in the spring. We do have trees, like the almond trees, that shed their leaves in cycles all year. Then there is this tree in our back yard. It loses leaves every day of the year, enough that they have to be raked up every couple of days (and I hate raking leaves; I'd rather shovel snow!). Up until a couple of weeks ago that is. Right after the equinox, it dropped all of its leaves, bags and bags full of them.
At the same time it started sprouting new leaves
and these crazy flowers.
The flowers all morphed into these:
which are now dropping. (LS - remember "nuts in the tree?")
That may not be the strangest tree in our yard. This one has huge orange flowers. The clusters are 14" to 16" across.
They are bright and beautiful in the early morning sun.
In the middle of the clusters of flowers are seed pods that look like alien life-forms that could swallow you whole. They look like they should wiggle; fortunately they don't.
More flowers tomorrow.
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