In late spring (I know, I know, for some of you now is late spring) I was taking a walk at the South Carolina Botanical Garden, enjoying the fresh air and beautiful sights, the symphony of cascading water, birdsong, and trees whispering in the breeze. As I crossed the bridge over the waterfall, I happened to look up and see this bright red heart dangling over my head.
Of course, being me, I was sure that it was a message of love from the Divine, a little personal kiss blown my direction on this gorgeous day. It certainly put a big smile on my face.
But then I inspected the tree it was attached to, which was simply covered with hearts of all sizes in a range of warm shades all the way from apricot to burgundy. The wind ruffled them all individually as I stood looking up at the canopy and enjoying the Beauty and the cool mist rising from the nearby falls. I stood there an inordinately long time, staring straight up at the blue dome far beyond the glowing hearts, lost in a realm of no-thought.
Truthfully, I felt as if I were held in place. Something was nagging at my subconscious, something that wouldn’t let me leave — quite yet.
Eventually, I recognized the onset of neck pain and righted my gaze. As my eyes alighted upon the stone wall leading up to the bridge, it clicked, that thing that was bothering me.
I knew this tree.
In fact, I’d sat on that stone wall in the very early spring, the better to enjoy a Japanese apricot in bloom (you might remember that post), and the better to survey the pond laid out below my perch.
And I so appreciated the view that I came back to do it again a few weeks later — only it was raining and I couldn’t sit on the stone wall without ruining the seat of my pants. Fortunately, the petals of the Japanese apricot had become so luminous and bewitching scattered on the bridge railing, coated in raindrops, that I was inspired to make a post entirely about them.
So I tried again, about two weeks later — at which point I got completely distracted by the blooming of the redbud just to the left of my perch.
That was it!
This tree was the oh-so-familiar Eastern redbud, a fixture in the Southeast at Easter. In fact, growing up I’d heard it referred to as the “Judas tree.” The folktale holds that Judas hanged himself from a redbud, and ever since then the tree has been unable to make a sturdy enough branch for anyone else to do so. As such, it made a perfect foil for the dogwood, which has a whole host of legends and symbolism to connect it to Christ and the crucifixion — which also typically blooms in this region right on time for the holy days. Some legends even say that the cross itself was made of the wood of a dogwood tree.
Naturally, it’s hard to take any of these old folktales seriously in an age when we know about interconnected ecosystems and the native ranges of species. I grew up thinking of the stories as merely quaint, secure in the knowledge that neither tree grew along the Jordan River. Although the nicknames do serve one vital function, as memorization aids: I could tell you confidently, from early childhood on, when both trees were likely to blossom.
Just to confirm my guess as to its identity, the folks at the Botanical Garden had kindly placed a sign at the foot of its trunk.
(And yes, I went through all of that searching and gazing without glancing down to check for a sign. Funny; right? But we have to remember that I didn’t know what it was that was rooting me in place yet. The feeling of somehow recognizing this tree was still too nebulous to be named.)
I only got around to photographing it once it had passed its peak bloom, and for some reason that I cannot now recall, I was only interested in capturing its trunk. And I wasn’t interested enough to get the photo just right, as I typically try to do for this blog. My very nonchalance about the whole thing speaks to how common these trees are around here, how much a regular, nearly forgettable player in the landscape.
(Regular readers may note that there may be a trend going on here, with me actually noticing the features of this region anew lately, not just letting them fade into the background. Magnolias, mimosas, redbuds… what’s next?)
Still, even if I am a bit jaded to its appearance, I must admit that a tree whose very trunk explodes in bloom is pretty cool.
Looks like she's wearing a feather boa; doesn't it?
But what was holding me rapt now was the realization that I only knew the redbud in its blooming costume. I had never before even considered what it looked like for the rest of the year, if it had any interesting habits, details worth noticing after the Easter parades had passed on by.
That would be like judging me by what I looked and acted like at about age 13 — and then forgetting the rest of the picture to come. I shudder to imagine. Really.
So I decided I would pay attention to the redbud for the entire year. I’ll share some of my observations so far.
To summarize in advance: I knew nothing.
Baby leaves start out a vivid scarlet... and fade with age.
The fade to green seems to begin at the veins, although the veins, themselves, maintain their bright red pigment. Here, you can see the pretty pink underside of a young leaf in late April.
Those pretty blossoms serve some purpose, of course: here are the seed pods forming in late spring.
Many of the leaves pass through a lovely golden-amber phase on their way to green.
This photo was taken yesterday, in early June. You can still see a hint of warm burgundy in the maturing foliage.
The veins have maintained a hint of their early spring color, and on the underside of the mature leaves, a blush can clearly be seen.
The branches grow in a wonderful zigzag pattern, and the youngest leaves, growing on their very tips, are still as red as a cardinal's wing, even in June.
Grown-up leaves still maintain an outline of their first crimson color, now faded to burgundy.
These photos were taken wherever and whenever I’ve met the redbud since that first moment of recognition. These trees are ubiquitous around here, after all, and now that I can recognize their non-flower-bedecked form better I’m seeing them everywhere. But I must thank the SC Botanical Garden, yet again, for nudging me to do a double-take — and thus awakening me to the everyday beauty that lives with me in this region.
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