Happy Independence Day, Philadelphia and all of its trees. I’ll try to take a break from all that Original People mumbo-jumbo and spend a day celebrating the totems of the United States of America.
The national animal? The bald eagle, although a case could be made for other native animals: the beaver, the bison, the shad, the crayfish, the painted turtle or the moose.
The national flower? The rose. That’s a little disappointing. There are a lot of reasons why it could be the marigold, the dandelion, the prairie rose, the yucca flower or actually the sunflower, one of the few flowers native only to this Turtle Island.
The national tree? Officially the oak. Another disappointment. How about something very specialized to America, something akin to Turtle Island: the sequoia, the tulip poplar, the ponderosa pine, the southern live oak, the Joshua tree, the bristlecone pine or the saguaro cactus?
Well, you can’t say I didn’t try.
And the national colors? The red, white and blue? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that we’re in the heart of the Strong Sun Moon, but I am enchanted and bedazzled by so many more colors than just those three.
There is no scientific basis for the following statement but I am going to say it anyway: it takes a real strong sun and a real high heat to brew all that summer color. The first colors of the year are usually white, red, yellow and, of course, green…but, by the time we get to the Strong Sun Moon, we get the oranges, the blues and the purples, plus all the different shades and blushes of the original colors: the pinks, the crimsons and the jades. In the summer, we go all the way around the color wheel.
I believe, just on a gut instinct, that it simply takes longer for the trees and plants to produce those complicated colors than it does the reds and whites and greens. But, like I said, I have no basis to believe that it’s true.
Except for my own eyes, of course. Here is a typical farmstand in the very beginning of the Hardy Zone Seven growing season, mid-May:
And here are some farmstands in the heart of the Strong Sun Moon:
It’s just a theory but I’m saying that it takes more time, more sun and more heat to make all that color. Although, come to think of it, the rainbow swiss chard kind of destroys that theory.
Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. Let’s move on. Let’s go downtown to historical Philadelphia, see what the trees are doing over there.
