Our Environment: “Redbud in Bloom” By Scott Turner

Our Environment: “Redbud in Bloom” By Scott Turner

This week in the Ocean State, the small tree, called redbud, is in full bloom. Redbud grows naturally from the lower Great Plains into the Eastern U.S., but it’s native range falls just short of Rhode Island. Here, redbud is primarily an ornamental.

The pink-to-reddish-purple blooms of redbud bring tropical color into the shrub-layer this time of year. Redbud flowers are also unusual, as they grow and blossom directly on a tree’s old twigs and branches, as well as the trunk. These clusters of blooms look like little splotches of brilliance dabbed onto the dark-brown wood.

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Another cool thing about redbud is that if you look closely at the flowers, you will discover that they look like pea blossoms. In fact, the tree is a member of the pea family. Later in the growing season, some of those flowers will become clusters of flat green pods that will turn brown with maturity.

Unlike peas, however, redbud pods and the four-to-ten seeds that they each contain are unpalatable for people. As well, the pods and seeds are not a looked-for food by wildlife. In fact, the pods and seeds usually go untouched through winter.

In our Providence neighborhood, dried-on-the-tree pods and seeds of redbud rattle in winter winds. It’s a nice resonance, coming amidst a season that doesn’t usually produce much sound.

Last weekend, we drove to Athens, Ohio, to bring Noah home from the completion of his first year in college. The outbound trip took us through some 75 miles of Western Maryland, where redbud grows naturally. There, we saw the trees in flower, scattered in forests, yet abundant on more-gravelly hillsides along the highway.

Their lovely springtime color reminded me of shadbush, which is our local early blooming small tree of woodlands and edges. Shadbush produces showy white flowers that contrast with the species’ skin-colored bark. In contrast to redbud fruit, the berries of shadbush are edible to people and wildlife. Undeniably, they are a tasty early-season snack.

Flowering dogwood was another small tree blooming in the forests of Maryland. Compared to redbuds, the dogwoods featured more-spreading crowns and were most-often observed growing deeper within the forests. The dogwood blooms were a showy and bright white.

Flowering dogwood is a Rhode Island native, although it isn’t as common in forests here as in the Mid-Atlantic. Currently in Rhode Island, flowering dogwood, with either white or pink blooms, is at peak color. This brilliance brightens the spectacle of spring.

During our trip to and from Ohio, we encountered daytime and evening temperatures in the 70s, with strong sunshine and relatively high humidity. As former natives of Pennsylvania and Ohio, we were reminded that spring typically warms up inland regions before the coast fully thaws out.

Here in Rhode Island, small, light-green, heart-shaped leaves will soon begin to emerge on redbuds, beginning at the tips of the branches. For a few days, leaves and flowers will exist together in a colorful contrast of foliage. Then the blossoms will wither away, and the leaves will enlarge, slowly turning a darker-green color.

Enjoy the local floral show while it lasts. Often in Rhode Island, the rapid advance of vegetation now underway serves as a backdrop for the seasons to progress from winter straight into summer.

Scott Turner is a Providence-based writer and communications professional. For more than a decade he wrote for the Providence Journal and we welcome him to GoLocalProv.com.