Rusty blackhaw at its rustiest

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In contrast to the last entry’s look at a single leaf, here’s a group picture showing rusty blackhaw, Viburnum rufidulum, at its rustiest. The Latin word rufidulum, by the way, means ‘reddish,’ but I’d say this photograph is evidence for dropping the -dish (and I hope it doesn’t break when it gets dropped).

As in the previous post, this view is from December 4th at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. To see various other places where this species grows, you can check out the state-clickable map at the USDA website.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman

Rusty blackhaw

On December 4th, for the first time in a good while, I drove down to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. There I met Bonnie Michelle, whom I know from her blog The Iris and the Lily, who was visiting from Pennsylvania to spend some time in Austin with her daughter Rebecca. Together the three of us wandered through the Wildflower Center’s courtyards and walked the nature trails on both sides of the property. Although the skies were cloudy and we had a few minutes of rain, the temperature gradually rose into the 70s, quite different from what Pennsylvanians normally experience in December.

That excursion to the Wildflower Center was also a chance for me to try out my first full-frame digital camera, the Canon EOS 5D Mark III that I’d gotten five days before. The resulting files aren’t a lot larger than those from my EOS 7D, 22 megapixels compared to 18, but the pictures from the new and larger sensor are smoother and less noisy, even at higher ISOs.

But enough of the technical. This picture from that first session with the new camera is also a first for this blog, Viburnum rufidulum, a tree known as rusty blackhaw because its leaves turn red (and to a lesser extent yellow and orange) in the fall.

To see the various places where this species grows, you can check out the state-clickable map at the USDA website.

© 2012 Steven Schwartzman