flowering trees, perhaps overlooked

We had a nice day in the city yesterday. The trees are beginning to flower fully and that means lots of pollen but do you ever get up close to see what they look like. Kind of interesting when you look closely at the tree flowers. I mean the ones that are not usually mentioned like maples and native sweet gum trees. Everyone knows what a cherry blossoms look like in DC we have tons of them. I noticed a few and took some photos here are a couple images of the bright yellow green flowers of the Norway maple tree that grows at the curb by our building. They make very deep shade and thousands of little "whirl-i-gigs" that fly in the summer's thunder storms.

Today it is raining but I wanted to see the buds on the sweet gum and went out anyway to capture a few shots of the buds on our new tree across the street. I will try to catch a few photos of them once they open their puff balls of pollen in the coming days.

sweet gum's flower buds and new leaves 

I have also been watching the maple tree that turns great colors in the fall at Turkey Thicket turn a bright spring yellow-green. I think these below look more willowy than the others maples flowers. 

Turkey Thicket play ground maple 

double click this one to see the details against the wet black bark