Today, my quest was to find one of four trees and identify its phenological phase; either flowering, budding, fruiting, or no evidence of any. I searched for one of the trees with my friend Amelia in Centennial Woods. We first tried looking for paper birch, but all the ones we found had grown too tall and we couldn’t reach any of their branches. Then, we looked for American Beech and Northern Red Oak and ended up finding that it was too hard to differentiate them from other lookalikes when they’re bare without leaves. Finally, we hunted for Red Maple hoping that this time we’d have some luck. Luck was ours; we found a few young Red Maple saplings. The trees were able to be identified and distinguished from their winter lookalikes by their distinctive red bark, pointed red buds, and opposite branching. After the mission was accomplished, we ran home and I took a nap to rest from the treacherous obstacles we had to face and overcome today… what a wonderful day.
Until our next journey…