Tree Seeds

I was walking a stretch of the Bruce Trail yesterday, along an old fencerow, when I started noticing the tree seeds.  Fencerows often have several different species of trees, so I was quickly able to find at least five different ones with visible seeds that I could photograph.  You may not have seen all these, so have a look.  These are all more signs of the seasons - but perhaps signs that I've been neglecting, we take them so for granted.

Mountain Ash berries are perhaps the brightest and most obvious.  Birds love them, and I've seen flocks of robins or cedar waxwings descend on a tree and eat every last berry.

This is one you may not be familiar with, the Hop Hornbeam, one of the trees known as ironwood.  Like the next two below, the seeds are usually so high in the tree that we can't see them.

Basswood has round seeds attached to a small linear leaf which acts as a parachute when it falls off, hopefully carrying the seed out of the shade of the parent tree to a spot where it can germinate.

You probably recognize cherries, but it's not often that black cherries are close enough to the ground so that you can get a picture.  And the wood of black cherry is perhaps the most valuable hardwood here in southern Ontario.

Finally of course there are wild apples, spread everywhere it seems in unused corners of fields and fencerows, perhaps by deer or squirrels.  If you're lucky, one of these trees may have some quite good apples for making jelly, if not for eating.

 Linking to: