Big White Tree

For the last several years, I've been lucky enough to live in close proximity to some incredible blooming trees.

In Manhattan I had the magnolia behind my building. And in New Jersey we had this big cloud of a tree outside our apartment, and other trees in the field where the dogs used to run and sniff around.



Here's the one we have now -- a huge white thing down in the courtyard. I have only the fuzziest idea that it's some kind of ornamental fruit tree. Isn't it great?

When I grew up in Florida, of course, we had blooming trees all around us. But Florida trees are like tropical print shirts -- bright and showy. The purple jacaranda, the orange poinciana, the red kapok, the yellow tabebuia -- they're the visual equivalent of brilliant squawking parrots. Even the white magnolias seem extreme, with fleshy lobed flowers as large as dinner plates.

Northern trees, on the other hand, seem much gentler, with their refined whites and pinks and tiny flowers. Maybe that's why I find them so captivating.