Florida flora

I picked a great 4 months to spend in Florida. By all accounts from my friends and family you have had a terribly cold and snowy winter. Winter here, is not nearly so traumatic. It does get cold in Tampa and occasionally there is even frost, but I have not seen snow since I left NY. Cold fronts push through on a regular basis and when it rains, the winter precipitation is usually in the form of showers. I can recall exactly two days, in four months, in which rain has fallen for most of a single day. I have had the opportunity to travel all around this big state, which now has more people then NY and observe the plants and various habitats they occupy. It has been a great learning experience.

Right now the azaleas are either just about finished blooming in the Tampa area, or just coming into bloom on the Panhandle. The local pines here in Bradenton are shedding prodigious amounts of yellow pollen, much to the dismay of allergy sufferers. The pine “candles” are now fully elongated, a sight we will not see until June in NY. I recognize magnolia trees in bloom and a few others that we have up north, such as choke cherry, red maple, redbud and Bradford Pear, but most of the many other spectacular flowering trees are still unknown to me. It is really not so easy to appreciate spring down here, since it is not nearly as spectacular as springtime in the Catskills or the Hudson Valley. The arrival of spring in my beloved Mountains is like a warm, wet kiss on the lips, while it is more like a passing wink down here.

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