Forest Pansy Redbud

Can you think of a lovelier name for a tree than a Forest Pansy Redbud? This is a different redbud than I highlighted previously but has that same pattern of blooms emerging on the trunk. This tree is prized for its intensely colored reddish-purple heart-shaped leaves in the spring, becoming a deep reddish-green in the summer.                                                 

 

     Forest Pansy with newly-emerged heart-shaped leaves:

Cercis candensis 'Forest Pansy'

A poem for the day:

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

--Joyce Kilmer

Why we had to memorize these lines as youngsters I will never know, but reportedly it is not the best work of Kilmer's writing career so I will cut him some slack and refrain from any negative comments on this well known poem.