I walked through the ‘hood today and, passing by the cucumber tree, I snapped a photo to compare with the photo I took last week. Here’s how the tree looked last Sunday, a mere week ago.
And here’s how the tree looks today.
The tree is a Magnolia acuminata. Its common names are cucumber tree,
cucumbertree (one word), cucumber magnolia, and blue magnolia. This tree was planted in 1718, before the United States of America was a country. What has it “seen” in its almost 300 years? Native-Americans. Slaves. Settlers headed west. On a sunny day in 1864, General Robert E. Lee stood in its shade and looked south toward Petersburg, under siege by Union forces. Now children play under it on summer days. As trees go, I’m sure this one is in the autumn of its days.
No comments:
Post a Comment