The Red Leaf

I've commented in previous posts about the fall Vine Maple color in Gifford Pinchot.  I couldn't help noticing that the leaves deep in the forest were a bright yellow,  while the leaves at the edge of the forest or in clearings turned red.  Of course for every rule, there is an exception, and this red leaf (Big Leaf Maple?) was pretty exceptional in my opinion!  Yellow leaves as far as you could look in any direction, and then this one red show off! Just doing his own thing. A true nonconformist.

A Yellow Wood

I mentioned in my previous post, Looking for Red, that the Vine Maples I've been seeing this fall in Gifford Pinchot National Forest are turning red where they are getting more light on the edges of forests or in clearings, and turning yellow deep in the woods where there's less light. Here is an example of yellow, on a section of the Pacific Crest Trail, which threads its way through Gifford Pinchot. 

Witch Hazel

I stumbled upon this fabulous yellow blossomed tree in the park this morning.  Blooming several weeks before the Forsythia, and based on the flower, my first guess would have been Witch Hazel, except I thought it bloomed in late fall.  Some sleuthing ensued.  First at the NatureScaping plant sale, where the park environmentalists guessed some sort of Chinese ornamental.  I told them it was growing in the wild, and they told me that this area of the park was reclaimed from an old home, built in the early 1900s, that was sitting in the flood plain.  So the tree, or maybe its ancestor, was planted at this home a long time ago.  On my way home I made a stop at Yard and Garden Land for some supplies, and sitting at the entrance to the nursery was my little yellow blooming tree: Chinese Witch Hazel! Mystery solved.  As of this morning I'm obsessed with this plant. I want to go back and buy it.  I love the idea of cheery yellow blossoms in the winter. But where to plant it?  I should wait this year and give it some thought, maybe...

Ginkgo

A rainy day, finally!  Time for a reprieve of the "through my rainy windshield" series.  Today, the ginkgo; I couldn't help noticing the yellowing ginkgo trees in the grocery store parking lot when I was running errands.  The ginkgo is such a cool tree.  I love the leaf shape, and how the leaves sprout out like fur along every branch.  I think it's got a pretty unique shape for trees. Turns out it's a very ancient tree, native to China, with fossils dating back 270 million years.  Common in the US for several hundred years, I mainly see it along easements and in parking lots. 

Canola, or Maybe Mustard

I have to admit, I can't really identify any of the plants that grow in the Palouse.  It's not like the Midwest where I grew up, corn and soybeans are pretty easy to tell apart.  I don't know wheat from lentils.  I initially assumed that this yellow flowering crop was canola, but I read online that canola and mustard are hard to tell apart to the untrained eye.  I also read that if you plant one of these crops in a field than you can never plant the other, because they cross to form a plant known as rapeseed, which is evidently a very unwelcome crop.  When I was in the Palouse last week I wandered through the Moscow Farmer's Market, and there was a vendor selling something I believe he called Canolina Oil, which was made from a mustard seed, but not the same as the mustard oil you would find at an ethnic grocery.  I tried some and thought it tasted delicious!  He had a lot of statistics and data worked up by the WSU campus to show all the health benefits, but I was a little skeptical on how well it would store given that he compared it against flax oil which oxidizes so quickly.  Anyway, that's my wishy-washy experience with this yellow flowering crop, whatever it is.  Not exactly my most definitive post!  :)

Black, white, and yellow all over

So I was driving down the highway, and I passed this truck full of yellow PVC pipes.  The light was really great and I was thinking the pipes would make a really interesting photo, but of course I was driving.  Not that I'm above snapping a photo here and there from the car, but not on the highway!  So I pull over at a rest stop down the road, and just as I'm getting back in my car, what comes driving in?  The yellow pipe truck!  So I got my shot after all.  The light wasn't quite as "glowy" as I remembered, but the thing I like about this photo is that it is both over- and under-exposed.  I like the black centers, and the white hot circles.  This will be my last post this week.  I'm heading out of town again.  This time on a vacation down by Monterey.  Hopefully I'll have some good vacation shots to post when I get home next Friday.  Hope everyone has a fun and safe 4th of July!