Bray Fedele

I find it interesting and somewhat confusing that I have lived in the same place my entire life, and somehow I remain partially uneducated on the nature around me. The property on which I have grown is home to countless gifts of nature. I have a pond with bamboo and cattails growing around it. Several willow trees are carefully placed around the edge of the water and fill their many branches with long flowing leaves every summer. Oak trees, evergreens and sweet gum trees are scattered about as well. 

There is one tree however, that I have always been aware of, but not familiar with its name. This tree does not look like the average “tree”, as it is not as tall, and grows its branches more outward than upwards. Its flowers are different in quantity and extravagance each spring, something that has always confused me. Small apple-like fruits grow on the tree, but only sometimes. 

When given this assignment, I knew this tree is what I would research. I described how it looked and its different flowering tendencies in a Google search, and my mystery tree was then uncovered. A Crabapple Tree. Crabapples are said to alternate between heavy flowering, showy flowering, fruiting, and light flowering with no fruiting. This clearly explained why this tree had sometimes had little to no flowers, and other years it was the most eye catching of all. This unique quality of the previously unidentified tree was something I had never heard of, but something I most definitely now appreciate.