WYCH ELM SAMARAS

Like Norway Maple the Wych Elm looks as if it is in leaf before it is.  But this time it is not the flowers.

These are the winged fruits called samaras.  The papery wing helps the seeds to flutter away from the parent tree.   Although usually a lot of them fall like green confetti to the ground beneath the tree.

The Wych Elm flowers probably went unnoticed above our heads earlier in the year in January and February.  Little red, bristly things here pictured by Phil Gates against a winter blue sky.