2015 tree following 10: The empress looks forward…

Next year’s flower buds are already developing

I feel the year’s end drawing near for my empress tree (Paulownia tomentosa) in Cardiff’s Bute Park. I know some tree followers track progress from March to March, but I tend to follow through a calendar year and then do a recap in January before choosing a new tree.

By the way, sadly Lucy at Loose and Leafy is calling time on hosting the tree-following meme for us all, but the good news is that she is passing it on to me to host, so hopefully I will do it justice!

I have set up a page with all the general tree-following information and links, here. I hope to publish a link box for all the tree followers on the 7th of each month and leave it open for a week – so see you Saturday. For now, though, here is my own monthly tree-following post.

It was a dark, dank day when I visited the empress tree this week. There was fog all over the UK but here we just had grey dampness.

The empress in gloom

The empress still seems to be clad in green, despite the autumn colour around her.

The empress lightened up by a bit of PhotoShop jiggery-pokery

Plenty of big green leaves remain

I have concluded that empress tree leaves drop off as soon as they start to fade, rather than hanging on in there to give autumn colour. Maybe it’s because the are big and heavy and their attachment is weak.

Messy fallen leaves around the tree

Even perfectly good green leaves sometimes fall

Some of these leaves are starting to decay – but can you see next year’s flower buds developing?

I have come to love the flower buds of the empress tree, as I watched them for months this year, waiting for them to open into wonderful purple blooms. They remind me of chocolate truffles – balls dusted with cocoa powder.

Chocolate truffles on a stick…

While the empress is already looking forward to next Spring, she has not yet let go of this year’s seeds. The capsules are still fresh and green.

Green seed capsules…

…a closer look

Beneath the tree there is nothing growing now but grass and the leaves of cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris). I wondered where have all the flowers gone? Of course I saw them die and turn brown and dry, but did they fall back to the ground and disappear naturally after that, or did the Bute Park gardeners go around clearing the dead stalks away? I have no idea.

Cow parsley beneath the empress tree

I was running out of things to photograph. But I always love the pale young branches of this tree, such a contrast to the older, darker, trunk.

Young white branches against the darker trunk

The lichen and moss on the trunk have also become all too familiar, but there does seem to be some development among the moss…

Moss and lichen

A closer look at the miniature branches of the moss – I have not yet identified the species

I have come to think of the “belly button” of the empress, where a big branch was sawn off, as her front, so I suppose this image must be her profile – and she looks like she is wearing a long gown, which flows out behind her as she glides majestically…

The empress tree in profile

But trees don’t move, do they?

See my Paulownia tomentosa posts here.

See my 2014 hornbeam tree-following here.

See all my posts that have anything to do with trees here.

Also see the tree-following information page here.

And see Lucy’s Loose and Leafy blog here. Although she is taking a breather from blogging, there is still a lot to see on her blogspot!