Northeast Gardening: Do you want to play a game? pt 2, 4 by ViburnumValley

ViburnumValley wrote:
Yes yes yes, to Celeste!

This is the intricate emerging foliage from the spectacular bud of Carya laciniosa, Shellbark Hickory.

It was pretty much pure luck to see this plant on a nice late April spring day in Shawnee Park, starting to leaf out despite being mostly swallowed by Japanese Honeysuckle. The colors/textures of the bud scale as it expands and opens rivals many flowers. Some of these images still seem unreal to me.

The first picture is the one I cropped from; the rest are just hyperbole.