A tree by any other name

A recent late afternoon stroll with Mrs Sciencebase around NT Anglesey Abbey in Lode, near Cambridge, led to a few revelations about various plants and statuaria that were in bloom and uncovered following the winter. There’s an avenue of trees before you leave (not the Winter Walk) but parallel to that with a tree we couldn’t identify. Picture below, tree is about 8-10 metres tall and in this zoomed in shot you can see a bee about to alight on its floral protuberances. Tall, with both a red and yellow, rhubarb and custard, hue to its aspect overall against the blue of the sky. The curious thing though zooming into the top of the tree, lots of hairy, frond-like flowering “catkins” and shiny bright green leaves that had something of the maple about them but were in clusters rather than growing as separate leaves each on its own stem as one would expect of that family. The staff on reception were none-the-wiser as to its identity, although one did posit that it was some kind of acer (maple). None of us were convinced and the assistant in the plant sales area didn’t know either, despite his bumper book of tree photographs. I took an email address from reception and sent a message to Philip Hazel. Turns out to be a retired chap with a case of late-onset nominitive determinism of the surname (nevertheless very much worthy of the New Scientist Feedback column to which I contributed back in the day). Philip identified the tree immediately from my pho...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Science Source Type: blogs