I'm having trouble with a theme today. Douglas Justice suggested we check out the berries, so we went around tasting berries and totally forgot to photograph them. Sorbus yuana are ripe (not bad), as well as Aronia (I'm getting to like them), Cornus mas (really good), Gaultheria (taste like cotton candy), Hawthorn (not bad), I forget what else. We didn't eat the quince or camellia fruits. The Catalpa bungei has a lot of new pods this year. We were trying to figure out why the path was so open - I think half this tree has been removed. Eric La Fountaine let me know that the Heptacodium miconioides was in bloom and nicely fragrant. We did photograph that last year at the end of August. I'd been disappointed last year that we didn't see any red calyces, but we managed to catch some this year. Eric pointed out the Rhododendron 'Rosevallon', with very purple leaf backs, and a few flowers in bloom. Speaking of leaves, Parrotiopsis jacquemontiana was new to us, with very nice leaves. Nadia was determined to find the leaves that went with this Zanthozylum oxyphyllum that we photographed a while ago. She found them. They're as prickly as the main stem, and much more painful. The Schefflera delavayi seems to have many more flowers this year. They're not open yet, but I preferred them at this stage. It looks great. In the Carolinian Garden, the Magnolia virginiana has flowers and fruits now. I'll close with Harpochloa falx, a name I've never heard before. It seems to get rave reviews as a garden plant. A common name is caterpillar grass - see Daniel Mosquin's photo for a good idea why.
