JIM CONRAD'S NATURALIST NEWSLETTER Issued from the Sierra Nevada Foothills east of Sacramento, California June 12, 2005
INSIDE THE CHERRY TREES Cherries are ripening now. The trees have good, solid varietal names like Bing and Rainier. I think no leaf is prettier than one from a cherry tree. A cherry leaf is simple with no subdivisions, dark green and somewhat glossy above but with a slightly silvery sheen below, and pleasingly adorned with finely serrated margins. Each margin tooth, if looked at with a magnifying glass, is actually rounded, though often there's a tiny gland atop the rounded tooth, like a cherry atop a scoop of ice cream. At the top of the slender leaf stem, or petiole, usually there are one or two reddish, waxy-looking, sand-grain-size, sweet-role-shaped glands. With a handlens and good light often you can see in the sunken center of those glands glistening exudations. I suspect that this is a sweetish liquid for attracting ants, who will attack anyone planning to eat the tree's leaves or fruits. However, ants don't seem particularly common in our trees so maybe the glands are vestiges from an earlier time when the trees' ancestors lived wild in Eurasia, and there were ants in that homeland who loved cherry-leaf- petiole-gland nectar. The Latin name for the common Sweet Cherry tree is PRUNUS AVIUM, and you can guess what "avium" refers to. This week I spread nets over the more prolific trees, to keep the birds out. Being inside a cherry tree on a sunny, coolish, dry day is very good. You're standing there squinting up through the branches trying to make sure the netting comes together right and you're struck by how pretty the sunlight is coming through the leaves, the shaded leaves very dark green and glossy, the leaves with sun on them more brightly yellow than green, and then those gorgeous red and yellow cherries suspended at all levels and distances, like stars in the night sky. You just stand there gawking upward wanting to take all the loveliness into your soul, to be like sunlight on wind-dancing cherry leaves, to be sweet like the cherries all around you, for your essential being to emanate exactly the same odor as the sun-warmed, recently macheted tall grass around the trees. When you're inside a cherry tree on a sunny, pleasant day and the wind is blowing through the orchard, you feel glad. And when you're able to top it all off by simply reaching out, plucking the ripest cherry in view, and eating it, and then eating another, and another... http://www.backyardnature.net/n/05/050612.htm ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Ever feel sad or cry for no reason at all? Depression. Narrated by Kate Hudson. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Ntf6vA/esnJAA/d1hLAA/0NYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Apply for Commercial Real Estate loans online and submit your deal to dozens of hungry lenders in just minutes. Loan programs for all types of business and commercial real estate. Apply anytime at http://realestatezoo.com BiFem :) a bifem.net publication -------------------------------- Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web Site: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BiFem Chatoom: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BiFem/chat Visit BiFemLounge our 24 hour chatroom at http://bifem.net Get a New Orleans Free Email account at http://bifem.net Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BiFem/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
