Mystery Flora: Winter Wonders, Plus Fútbol Fog

About the last thing I expect in early January is a blooming tree. I mean, seriously, tree, don’t you understand it’s winter?!

Image shows a tree with lots of skinny vertical branches. The branches hold bunches of tiny white-pink blooms.
Mystery Flora I

But it does not care. No, siree, this tree that’s growing along a serene Pacific Northwest residential street gives not one shit that it’s January, it’s going to bloom anyway, it can do what it wants!

Image shows one of the clusters of flowers. They are a sort of trumpet shape with petals that curl back tightly.
Mystery Flora II

The thing with Seattle is, it seldom feels like winter round here. We get temperatures and conditions that other people would call “spring.” The day B and I took this walk wherein we discovered the blooming tree, it was in the low 50s and merely overcast. We had sunshine in our forecast and there hadn’t been any snow for ages. We’re so spoiled here. No wonder the trees feel like they can bloom any old time.

Image is a closer view of one of the clusters.
Mystery Flora III

We only came across it because we were looking for a good hill, and didn’t have much daylight left. This is the argument I have with Seattle winters: the days are so damn short. I know this is the case elsewhere, as well, and some people have even shorter daylight hours in winter, but I reserve the right to whine about my own particular situation. B and I aren’t what you might call morning people.

Image shows a cluster of blooms and part of a skinny gray horizontal branch.
Mystery Flora IV

Oh, sure, my sleep patterns have gotten completely arsed about, now that I can work whenever. I’ve gone from my usual late-night pattern to going to bed at nine in the ay-em to grabbing a couple of hours of sleep in the wee hours and then topping off in the early evening, all in the course of a couple of weeks. Right now, I think I’ve got things sorted into a pattern that may allow for more daytime adventure, but the point is, it’s very hard to take advantage of the rare sunbeams Seattle offers when you happen to be a day sleeper. So you end up just managing to snag an hour or two here or there, wishing for summer, when you can sleep all day and still go play in the sunshine in the evening, because it won’t get dark until 10pm.

Image shows two clusters of blooms on a diagonal branch.
Mystery Flora V

Yes, my body is weird. I’ve always been nocturnal, except for a few random months of mornings here and there. I’d probably be accused of being a vampire in a less-enlightened age.

B’s on a health kick, so after dinner, he wanted to take another walk. The neato thing about these warm winter days with their cold nights is the fog. It was building up in the creek on our way out, and wafting over the soccer fields on our way back. Rather remarkably beautiful, for something so simple.

Image shows a lighted soccer field, with girls playing, and an arched streamer of fog growing over the field.
Fog and futbol.

I loves fog, as long as I don’t have to drive in it.

So what do you think, my darlings? Is this blooming tree deeply confused, or is it bred for mid-winter loveliness?

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Mystery Flora: Winter Wonders, Plus Fútbol Fog
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7 thoughts on “Mystery Flora: Winter Wonders, Plus Fútbol Fog

  1. 3

    Flowers growing in clusters, and the plant seems to prefer sending out slender canes rather than typical tree branches. I don’t think it is any of the typical stone-fruit trees or even anything in the apple-pear kind of thing.
    This pic of a pink bush honeysuckle looks pretty close.

  2. 6

    I think it is a deciduous Viburnum, quite possibly the popular hybrid Viburnum X bodnantense ‘Dawn’. It normally blooms in the winter and early spring.

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