{"id":4192,"date":"2019-05-08T19:35:25","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T02:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/?p=4192"},"modified":"2019-05-08T19:35:25","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T02:35:25","slug":"alder-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/?p=4192","title":{"rendered":"Alder Flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_4193\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4193\" style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/alder_flowers.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4193 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/alder_flowers.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/alder_flowers.jpg 480w, https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/alder_flowers-225x300.jpg 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4193\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sitka Alder (<i>Alnus viridis<\/i> ssp. <i>sinuata<\/i>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Some my find this title surprising. Alder trees have <em>flowers<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>To a botanist, a flower is anything that produces seeds and fruit (in the case of plants like alders with separate male and female flowers, the pollen-producing flowers also count, of course). There is no requirement that they be showy.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, alder trees bear fruit as well as flowers! To a botanist, a fruit is anything that surrounds a seed. It doesn&#8217;t have to be fleshy, juicy, or edible. The tiny, dry wings that surround alder seeds are as much a fruit an apple or an orange.<\/p>\n<p>The photograph above shows clusters of both male (large, dangling catkins) and female (the smaller, erect catkins at top) flowers. Those male catkins released clouds of yellow pollen when I gently brushed them.<\/p>\n<p>The alder pictured above was not taken on Bainbridge Island and is not the Red Alder (<em>Alnus rubra<\/em>) so common on the Island. It is a Sitka Alder (<em>Alnus viridis<\/em> ssp. <em>sinuata<\/em>). I took that photo in the Olympic Mountains.<\/p>\n<p>The Sitka Alder is much smaller than the Red Alder, typically being only a large shrub or small tree, making it far easier to find flowers in easy shooting range. Sitka Alders have glossier leaves, which are sharper-toothed than the Red Alder&#8217;s. The Sitka Alder&#8217;s leaves are not curled under slightly at their edges like the Red Alder&#8217;s are. The Sitka Alder is mostly a mountain tree, while the Red Alder is a common lowland species. One of the favored habitats of the Sitka Alder is avalanche slides; for this reason it is sometimes called the Slide Alder.<\/p>\n<p>If all that leaves you a little confused, fear not! That particular Sitka Alder happened to be growing in the altitude range where the two species overlap, right next to a Red Alder sapling. I snapped a picture showing the two side by side (Sitka on the left, Red on the right).<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4194\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4194\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/both_alders.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-4194 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/both_alders.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/both_alders.jpg 640w, https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/both_alders-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/both_alders-400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4194\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sitka Alder on the left, Red Alder on the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some my find this title surprising. Alder trees have flowers? To a botanist, a flower is anything that produces seeds and fruit (in the case of plants like alders with separate male and female flowers, the pollen-producing flowers also count, of course). There is no requirement that they be showy. Yes, alder trees bear fruit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}