The Vasculum

For many, spring is ushered in by the purple reign of Eastern Redbud or the snowy white of Flowering Dogwood. While I also put the winter blues behind me at the sight of these old faithfuls, I find Wild Goose Plum a more accurate measure of the seasonal fulcrum. Blooming a solid two weeks earlier than the more cliché spring trees mentioned above, I like how rebellious it is in the face of a late freeze. It softly represents the more unique and less vulgar aspects of nature’s palate. Wild Goose Plum ( Prunus munsoniana ) begins blooming at the end of March and reaches its peak bloom by the second week of April. Unlike Flowering Dogwood which seems to have a more regionally synchronized phenology, Prunus munsoniana has no rhyme or reason to its blooming window; I speculate this temporal heterogeneity is a consequence of blooming closer to potential late freezes. Be it patches in the same field or scattered colonies along miles of highway, you will often see a full spectrum of floral...