In October, my blossoms looked like yellow spiders and the seed pods, which took a whole year to develop, were tight closed:
By December, the long spidery legs of the flowers are gone:
The seed pods are starting to dry and will soon release their seeds:
By March, the seeds have been released… ejected in fact… sometimes as far as 15 feet from the tree on which they grew:
Who am I?
Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana)!
Did you guess it? Were you right?
I knew I had seen and ID’d that tree before but I got it wrong. This is fun!
Ellen
Yup, I did! This is fun!
Yep… I was right! Fun post.
I got it! I got it! I have never actually seen this plant before, so that goes to show how helpful it is to browse field guides and other visual media in your free time.
I remember my grandmother using witch hazel a lot when I was a kid, and remember it has an unusual but not unpleasant odor, and was very soothing to the skin.