Not only did I get to hear Douglas Justice's interesting and informative talk on Biodiversity Rules! today, but I saw two great trees. I supposed we've caught this Melliodendron xylocarpum with the white flowers in bloom before, but I can't remember. I was excited to finally recognize it, though. This Tapiscia sinensis was written up as Tapiscia sinensis on September 10, 2012. The excitement at the time was its possibly "first outdoor flowering of a plant family in North America in (tens of?) millions of years", but it should have been written up every year for its beautiful emerging leaves.
OK, I had to look up stipel: "a secondary stipule situated at the base of a leaflet of a compound leaf" (one of the definitions on the google shortlist). So is that one of the first two things pictured or something else? The first seems to be growing on the rachis, the second on the leaflet petiole, rather than what I would call the base of the leaflet. I wondered what I was looking at in the third photo.
The dark ears are a couple of bud scales and there is a stipule visible behind and to the left of the leaf rachis.
More photos of the Tapiscia sinensis, just because there aren't enough photos in the world of this tree. And photos of the more pink Melliodendron xylocarpum. Stipels are the little green things on the rachis between the leaflet petioles. I did notice those right away. This Melliodendron xylocarpum is the one at Farber and Purdom in the Asian Garden. It seems to have more flowers than I've seen on it before, but maybe it was only last year that we first saw it, and we found it late. The colours of the flowers and buds are so beautiful, and this is the perfect time to see this tree.
And an even more pink Melliodendron xylocarpum, at the Meyer Glade. Other Melliodendron photos from previous years are in the Asian Garden: Melliodendron xylocarpum thread.
Eric La Fountaine pointed out the flowers and what must be last year's fruits on the Tapiscia sinensis for us. I forgot that we didn't have a photo of the tree leafed out and didn't think to take that. I think the flowers are just starting to open, but it doesn't look like they're going to be very showy.
