I found 23 plants in bloom on Friday but only 4 were new for the season. Of those 4 only one was "native" to our area and the other three were planted cultivars in the Royal Botanical Garden grounds.
I took photos of 3 or the 4 new blooms. The first, and most showy, was Winter Aconite. It was blooming in the Spicer Courtyard of the RBG. I have seen this plant in the "wild" as it has been naturalized in various places but this one was planted just a couple of years ago.
The other two flowers that I photographed were both very small. One was on a shrub called American Hazel. This plant too has become naturalized in the wilder parts of the Royal Botanical Gardens and we even have one that showed up unplanted on our property in Brant County. One has to look very closely to find the small female flowers on this shrub.
Yes, that is my finger behind the flower.
The last flower that I photographed is from a tall, well formed tree in the RBG Arboretum. The tree is called a Turkish Hazelnut. One can easily see that it is related to the American Hazel shrub.
This time it is my thumb that is backing the flower. Behind my hand and the flower, one can see the bottom part of the Turkish Hazelnut tree.
Both the shrub and the tree have male dangling catkins that will develop later with pollen. They too look much alike in spite of being on a smaller shrub and larger tree.
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