{"id":710,"date":"2009-04-11T08:02:22","date_gmt":"2009-04-11T08:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2009\/04\/11\/in_which_the_mystery_tree_succumbs\/"},"modified":"2009-04-11T08:02:22","modified_gmt":"2009-04-11T08:02:22","slug":"in_which_the_mystery_tree_succumbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/2009\/04\/11\/in_which_the_mystery_tree_succumbs\/","title":{"rendered":"In which the mystery tree succumbs"},"content":{"rendered":"

I always associate Easter with the resurrection of flowering life. Although the holiday is early this year, our garden and woods are already full of birdsong and blossoms \u2013 cherry and apple, sloe and hawthorn, cowslips and coltsfoot. <\/p>\n

\nSadly, this spring will not bring back from the dead one of my favorite back garden inhabitants: a tall, woody shrub that perished over the winter, victim of a split trunk caused by its own burgeoning weight. I’ve spent many sultry summer afternoons basking in the shade of its deep-green leaves and star-like purple flowers, and was traumatized when spring did not bring new shoots emerging from its barren trunk. Only yesterday, we admitted defeat and cut it down (much to the disappointment of our neighbor peering over the fence, who loved it just as much as we did).<\/p>\n

\n\"\"
\nRest in pieces<\/em><\/p>\n

\nI wish I could tell you what it was, but I have never been able to find anyone who knows. It’s not native to Ohio, or I would have had to memorize its appearance and Latin names in my extensive undergraduate botany courses. Neither could I identify it with my Gray’s Manual of Botany<\/em>, a doorstop-sized dichotomous key that will eventually lead you to identify any species \u2013 if you’re willing to count bud scars, inspect pollen shape and dissect the ovaries of flowers under a microscope. <\/p>\n

\n\"\"
\nBlooms, in happier times<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\"\"
\nThe tree in the foreground on the right, last summer<\/em>_<\/p>\n

\nI was wondering if anyone out there could help me? I’d like to buy a replacement, and a positive ID would really help. Have a look at the pictures: it’s a woody shrub with ovate leaves, tree-like and prone to growing two or three meters tall. The purple flowers have five petals and an orange center, resembling the Solanaceae (the family that contains deadly nightshade and tomatoes), but nothing looked promising in that section of Gray’s<\/em> so I’m suspecting it’s something else.<\/p>\n

\nIn the meantime, I hope you all have a relaxing Easter\/Passover\/long weekend, however you define it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I always associate Easter with the resurrection of flowering life. Although the holiday is early this year, our garden and woods are already full of birdsong and blossoms \u2013 cherry and apple, sloe and hawthorn, cowslips and coltsfoot. Sadly, this … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}