Yesterday (in “A new leaf”) I reported on moving house, ending with
so, so tired — bone-exhausted — but extremely far from settled in [at Avant, my new place], just enough to take my meds and eat some food. Barely able to speak anymore. … Now it’s nap or pass out.
But I digressed long enough to comment on the pleasures that a wall of windows affords me, among them
… a beautiful big tree filling much of the space just outside my window
I then had one of the world’s great midday naps, long and deep, an immensely satisfying kaleidoscopic story dream with an astounding sound track. I was then equipped to get through the rest of it, during which I was unable to work through any of the routines of my daily life without strokes of great error, utter confusion, and incomprehensible ignorance. But persevered.
Meanwhile the number of things I have embarked on posting about has soared towards the triple digits (meaning that I will fail at a lot of it and will have to learn to live with that). But persevere. Have even experienced some periods of calm (while panic and despair clamor at my door) in which I appreciate simple pleasures. Like that tree.
The question is, what is that tree? It’s 30 or 40 feet tall, multi-branched, solid with green leaves. The leaves are pinnate (rather than, say, simple or palmate), with alternate (rather than paired) leaves. That cuts the possibilities way down. Making Gleditsia triacanthos, the honey locust (a legume), highly likely. On the con side, there’s the complete absence of developing seed pods on the tree (or developing nuts, for that matter, in case you had thoughts about walnuts).
Then there is the leaf-tip color thing. The fresh leaf growth at the tips of the branches at the top has a pretty reddish yellow tinge (all the older growth is a solid deep green). I have no idea what that means.
And this is where the tree mystery stands at the moment. I can of course fully appreciate the tree without knowing what it is. I have occasionally posted about my friend who has simplified the world of flowers by lumping them all under the header rose; he understands that the world has many sorts of roses in it, just prefers not to dwell on the details. (I have a cognitive psychologist’s critique of this strategy, but I also have a deep reluctance to mess with other people’s strategies for dealing with daily life unless it’s absolutely necessary.)
July 11, 2026 at 6:32 am |
I have two plant-identification apps on my phone – PlantNet and Flora Incognita (I really like that name) – that will at least attempt to identify a plant given a photograph.
July 11, 2026 at 8:06 am |
Two things. One, I had to hand-approve this comment because of the typo in your address (panix.cpm instead of panix.com). Mere annoyance.
Two, I unfortunately have nothing that would take a usable photo. And I wonder what such a photo would be like for a tree; would a close-up of the leaves do? (The plant ID schemes I’ve seen turn crucially on flowers and fruits — seeds, nuts, pods, or fleshy fruits — neither of which this tree has at this time of the year.)