New York Flora Association Blog

The long male catkins of speckled alder, Alnus incana ssp. rugosa, hang down below the drooping female catkins. Smooth alder, Alnus serrulata, has shorter male catkins and the female ones are more erect.

Siberian elm, Ulmus pumila, has flowers in small tight clusters of black and red flowers. Slippery and American elms have flowers on longer pedicels and are not so compact.

These hairy catkins of quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides, with red anthers were waving in the wind.

A cluster of female flowers of red maple, Acer rubrum, shows off its very red styles.

Still some months from flowering, young leaves of common mullein, Verbascum thapsus, poke through the dirt.