Emerging from the winter of 2021-22, I am more eager than ever to notice signs of spring. This Vancouver winter seems to have been longer than ever; after all we live here because we don’t want to shovel snow. Once again, we didn’t travel outside Canada, giving ourselves the excuse of rising airfares, but it could have been Covid that discouraged us and our irrational desire to wait out the challenges at home. And then there were the three long periods of snow and ice, when we in Vancouver are accustomed to one to three days at the most of sub-zero temperatures and snow.
Articles
Vancouver - January 18, 2022
When is a tree not a tree? When it’s a palm, a single-stemmed monocotyledon.
Vancouver - July 4, 2021
The tree’s trunk is braided, fluted, and made of sculptured vertical hills and valleys, some thick.
The moment I see the photograph of the unusual trunk of this mystery tree and I notice the email’s subject—“Tree Identifying Help?”—I am hooked. This is a mystery I want to solve.The local gardener who wonders which tree species has such a sculptured trunk thinks it might be an alder or a birch tree, because its leaves are oval and serrated. I can’t see leaf detail in the emailed photo. Clearly a puzzle.