At first glance, they look like an alien life form: little pink globules hanging from gracefully branching ornamental trees. And this year, they’re everywhere: golf-ball-dimpled fruit dotting a tree in front of the President’s house at Keene State, and baubles bobbing on a tree by a bench in front of the now-closed Waban branch library in Newton.
I don’t remember seeing pink, dimpled globules hanging from trees last year, but surely they were there: the trees that currently sport spherical pink Easter eggs aren’t new to their neighborhoods, and neither am I. But I had to do a double-, triple-, then quadruple-take when I first noticed this year’s strange fruit. These alien life forms hang from trees with dogwood-looking leaves, and dogwoods are popular ornamentals in both Newton and Keene. But the dogwoods I’m familiar with–the wild kind–bear clusters of bright red berries, not funky, fleshy globes.
A quick Google search solves the mystery: Kousa dogwood, alternately called Asian or Japanese flowering dogwood. Apparently ornamental Asian dogwoods don’t follow the same fruiting form as their wild American counterparts. But still, I’m left with another, more pressing enigma: how could I have walked for so long through the neighborhoods I and these dogwoods share without having previously noticed them?
Sep 22, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Perhaps the unusual weather patterns this summer have provided the perfect conditions for these beautiful berries.
Another posssibility is that the trees must reach a certain maturity level before producing.
It will be interesting to see if they bear again next year. I hope so.
Sep 23, 2008 at 4:55 am
I, too, wonder if there’s something weather-related in this year’s apparent bumper crop. I read somewhere that squirrels love to eat Kousa dogwood fruit, so I wonder if there are either fewer squirrels this year or if the squirrels are eating something else instead.
Now that I’ve started noticing them, they seem to be everywhere. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for them next year!
Sep 23, 2008 at 6:34 am
As charmed as I am by the notion that maybe this year is special and the trees are fruiting for the first time, I think I’m more charmed by the notion that the fruits were there last year but went unnoticed. It suggests to me that the world is full of wonders, just waiting for us to open our eyes.
Sep 23, 2008 at 11:40 am
This must be a day for beautiful berries. Amazingly, just before visiting your blog, I was up in Canada looking at other berries.
http://avonmusings.blogspot.com/
Sep 23, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Wow. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think I’ve ever seen those before either! Thanks for pre-emptively solving a future mystery!
Sep 23, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I’ve never ever seen these gorgeous fruits. Thanks for enlightening us, Lorianne!
Sep 23, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Yes, Nan: it’s definitely berry season. Just today I went “virtual berry-picking” with my camera on my lunch-hour.
Rachel, I’m with you: I think these fruit were there every other year, and somehow, I finally woke up to them. I suppose that’s either discouraging (as in “all those years of oblivion”) or wonderfully heartening (as in, “even now, new things await”).
Steve & Beth, I wonder if you’ll start seeing Kousa fruits now that you’re on the lookout for them…
Oct 15, 2008 at 12:58 pm
those are wonderfully weird, maybe they don’t appear every year…