Trees Stand
There are two trees in the 93 median just north of Roosevelt Circle. I've noticed them on the drive because for the longest time the highway department had been removing the grassy parts of the median on 128/95 along my previous drive between Woburn and Wellesley, squishing it down to a double row of concrete barriers. I like grass, but I also saw this as A Good Thing because now there's an inside breakdown lane and when all four+four lanes are packed at rush hour. it's good to get the fender-benders off to whichever side as soon as possible. But they didn't need to take down any trees along that stretch. So if they do the same to 93, what happens? I assume the trees would be doomed, and that's more of a shame than losing some grass (and, let's face it, it was mostly weeds, only a few of which bothered to bloom). These aren't big trees. For a while I thought they might be the same sort, though shaped differently. The more northerly tree has a straight trunk and gently spreading branches. The southerly tree has a twist to its trunk, the branches look strained, bent, as if broken off a few times and trying to recover. An accident could have caused the difference. "There but for the grace of DUI..." So I'd been waiting till full spring to see if the leaves gave more info, but now that it's been lighter out in the mornings, I see the bark differs. Smooth patches on the northern tree, rough scales on the southern one. Different by nature and not by nurture. But we'll see if the leaves help identify the species more exactly (despite my general botanical cluelessness!).