Some Early Flowers

            From the Royal Botanical Gardens Arboretum Shrub Collection, here are two Witch Hazel cultivars. Hamamelis x intermedia 'Jelena' is the red-orange flowered shrub in the background with a close up photo of one flower inserted. Hamamelis x intermedia 'Pallida' is the pale yellow flowering shrub in the foreground. They are two of the thirteen Witch Hazel cultivars currently blooming in the arboretum.

            Also from the Royal Botanical Gardens but from the wilder part of the Hendrie Valley, here is my annual photo of the early blooming Skunk Cabbage. I liked how the sunlight lit up the interior of the spathe on this specimen. The flowers are the little bits on the golfball sized part in the bottom middle of the spathe.

            OK, the last photo is not of a "flower," but the lichens are getting ready to spread their spores, I think. Anyway, they are beautiful in their own way. Yes it is a close up of a very small part of a dead willow branch.