The World has Turned Green!

In what seems like 3 days our world in the valley has turned green!  We've had 3 days of cooler rainy weather, on top of earlier days of warmth, and the buds on the shrubs and young trees have just exploded.  The woods, while it still looked largely brown three days ago, now looks a rich bright green.

We headed into the woods this morning, and this is what greeted us - bright green plants on the forest floor, bright green leaves emerging on all the saplings and smaller trees, and the beginning of green leaves in the canopy.

All the buds on younger saplings had unfolded, like these Sugar Maple leaves.  They look so delicate when they first emerge.

Here's a Basswood sapling with its shining green leaves all still somewhat curly after growing so fast over three days.

Have you ever thought about what the plant has to do to create a leaf like this out of a tiny bud less than a 1/4 inch long, in just a few days?  What blueprint is stored in that tree which gives rise to the precise pattern of all these leaves growing so quickly in early May?

The forest floor has been green for about a week now.  This is an 18" high forest of Blue Cohosh, which emerges looking purplish/blue, but turns to a normal green as soon as its leaves unfold.

And of course there are lots of Trillium in the woods where the dog and I walk, though not perhaps as many as at Old Baldy.

And the ferns, one of my favourite groups of woodland plants, are emerging fast too.

Put it all together and it simply makes a beautiful picture in the woods.

Eventually we turned around (not before Roxie had run through several mud puddles in her excitement), and headed back out the tractor trail.  The seasons continue to turn as they always do.

Linking to: