AN EARLY-FLOWERING TREE

The beautiful  racemes of white flowers on the Bird Cherry (Prunus padus) are showing now at Filnore Woods just beyond the stream near the toolstore.  

The tree is overlooked most of the year with its rather ordinary 'leaf-shaped' leaves.  But it can be identified, like lots of cherries, by the little pimples, usually two, on the leaf stalk where it joins the main blade of the leaf.

It may not be as outrageously pink as the common 'Kanzan' variety of Japanese flowering cherry  below, but it has a graceful, understated elegance IMHO.