One of my favorite trees-

Aren't these beauties!

Another photo of another tree in the same area-

These trees are right up there with American Yellowwood and Kentucky Coffeetree for me!

another photo-

Great bark too!

One last photo-

Oops, the tree is Ironwood which is also called Eastern Hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana).

Beautiful...

I have to think why "Cladrastis" comes to mind...

Ahh, yes, YELLOW WOOD!

Very nice,

Dax

The woodland edges were littered with Ostrya. I happened to go up there at the exact time of year they were blooming and I had my digital camera on me which was an added bonus. The blooms don't seem to last all that long. One week off and I would have missed the display.

Equil, is that your blue off road vehicle?

I was just lurking here...that is a beautiful tree. I was not familiar with it.

Yes, grampapa, isn't that a beautiful tree! I've planted a few down here that I bought as bare roots and it is my intent to add about 10 more to the understory here. I truly do like the bark on these trees. Nice winter interest.

Hey willis, I don't have one that is mine per se. We have a total of 7 of them. I just took that blue one that morning because it was easiest to get out as it was the last one in the garage. I stood on it to get photos of the leaves of the Ostrya. Normally I take an older Honda that has a big wooden basket in front. The Honda is the oldest and it's my favorite. I can load lots of goodies in my wooden basket. Here's an old stump I found that I brought home on top of some Common Mullein I hand pulled-

Seven ORVs, you could be an outfitter somewhere.

As parents, there are times my husband and I feel as if we should have been outfitters. It would be a lot easier to be able to send them all home once a tour was over. We find as a family that we get considerably more use out of these than we do out of snowmobiles and they're more versatile too. I wasn't aware of this but there are people who buy these machines and then rarely use them so if you are interested in picking one up, I think it might be better to buy one that is a year or two old as opposed to brand new. If you buy them new, they look as if they are beat in a year anyway and you'll shave off tons of money buying used. Just a thought.