Digital flower pictures, please!?!? (8 NEW PICS ADDED!)

LaFoto · May 18, 2006

Hey Chris, you might help:

This is our fir - and I think it is blooming. Could this be. Are these fir-blossoms? And are there male and female blossoms?

For they appear this differently.
Very pretty, I think. I don't recall ever having seen a fir tree in bloom.
But they must be blooming at some stage, else I wouldn't know how they could possibly produce their cones!?!?!?

LaFoto · May 18, 2006

Need to bump this till Chris finds it, I'm afraid...

PlasticSpanner · May 18, 2006

I found it & I don't know! :lol:

(I know you didn't mean me!

Littleman will be along next to give his answer! :lol:

)

Love that 2nd shot against the sky though! :thumbup:

LaFoto · May 18, 2006

Thanks, Chris.
But, couldn't the other Chris come round, maybe?
The one who knows?

digital flower · May 19, 2006

Hey LaFoto,

I am afraid I am not well versed in Fir trees as they do not grow well in my area (too much humidity and pollution). The first photo are the flowers, weather they are male or female I am not sure. I think it has to do with how far up the tree they are growing. The female flowers only grow near the crown. The male flowers grow in clusters (which it looks like yours are). The second photo, I think, shows cones just starting to mature. One of the things I like about Fir trees is the cones are upright. It makes for an unusual feature.

LaFoto · May 19, 2006

Ah. Those are going to be the cones! Then this fir is getting PLENTY this year! Very, very, very many!

If you are interested, here are a couple more photos of that same tree which I took today:

1.

Only the tip of the tree as seen from the upstairs window ... sorry for the busy background

2.

3.

The blossoms as they look now, 2 weeks after I took the first two photos

4.

5.

6.

7.

Several pics of the new cones (and they more and more look like cones now, too!)

And last, but not least: the new light green tips of the twigs, this one still with the shell on its very tip in which they are saved/stored before they start to grow (as can be seen in the second of the top two pics, only are all those shells out of focus there):

8.

By the way: this tree has a history.
If anyone would like to hear it, let me know, so I might feel like putting it up in the Photojournalism Gallery one day. (?)

lullabye · May 19, 2006

great pictures laphoto. i really love the fifth picture. It reminds me of mountains in china although i've never actually seen one personally.

ive never seen a fir tree before and i was wondering how big they are since in ur photo # 1 they look really small and i would love to hear the story of this tree.

digital flower · May 19, 2006

Nice to see some more of the tree. Excessive coning is a sign of stress, however. #5 could easily be a nice Christmas card. I would like to know the history of this tree having just planted a Historical Tree Collection.

LaFoto · May 20, 2006

Oh-oh-oh, our fir is undergoing stress!?!? :shock:
That is bad!
What can we do to help it?

And I mean to say that not this kind of fir has a history, but this very tree does, a very personal one, very personal to me, too, and quite "close to home" --- with quite a bit of sadness involved, so if you still want to hear it?