Friday, February 24, 2006

Confused trees?

I always thought that trees 'knew' what season it was, and so went through their cycles appropriately. In the UK, we generally get fruit blossom around March and April, fruit on trees from about June to September, orange/brown leaves in late September and October, which fall to the ground, leaving bare branches for mid-November until about mid-February, when the new buds start again. Other than the evergreens, of course. At least, this is what we learn in biology at around the age of 11, and the trees in the UK mostly behave as they're supposed to.

But in Cyprus, it's a bit more complicated. I already mentioned the almond blossom in our neighbour's garden; today it was looking even more stunning:


OK, so it's Spring. It was lovely and warm again today, about 21C [um, that's around 70F, for anyone on Fahrenheit] so we had all the windows open most of the morning and some of the afternoon.

Then again, it's still only February, and we may have another cold spell before it begins to get really hot. And sure enough, our mulberry tree looks much like a tree in the UK in winter:


On the other hand, our mespila (loquat) tree is past the blossom stage - so small it's hardly noticeable anyway - and has already produced tiny fruits. Evidently, it thinks it's already late spring:


Then again, the citrus trees are coming towards the end of their fruiting season - we still have lots of lemons:


And just to complete the cycle, the 'shade' tree (that's what the Cypriots call it) looks like a tree in Autumn:


Maybe the trees here never went to school to study the seasons.

1 comment:

Lora said...

The seasons really do seem to be much less straight forward in these southern climes.