Ah choo!

[cairistiona7]

While I was driving my daughter to school this morning, I drove past a corner of our property I can't see from the house, and to my dismay and alarm, I saw a puff of smoke coming out from the trees. I slowed down to look, but the smoke dissipated and there were no flames anywhere that I could see. I dropped off my daughter, drove back, and still

Comments

[suzll]

Nature be crazy, indeed! That's so bizarre!!

[cairistiona7]

It definitely "gave me a turn", as the old-timers say around here. I was sure it was smoke from a fire, until I got closer.

Supposedly the pollen counts for cedar in Texas were at record levels back in January. I kinda think it's going to be high here, too. I'm glad I'm not allergic to it (though hubby is... our first sign of spring is when he starts sneezing in January because the south winds blow Texas pollen up our way. :P)

[estelcontar1]

It definitely look like smoke, and if I had seen something like it I would have called the fire department.

[cairistiona7]

I definitely need to go down to that part of the property (which is, for all intents and purposes, The Wild... I'll probably find a Ranger and four hobbits!). I need to see just exactly what kind of juniper that is.

[ysilme]

Now this is really fascinating! And how good it hasn't been smoke after all.

[cairistiona7]

It was such a relief... because there's so much dead and dried-out winter vegetation, any time there's a really windy day, we're put under a red-flag warning about wildfire. And since just last week we had that big brushfire on the other side of our hill, I'm a wee bit paranoid! I'll gladly take pollen over fire any day. :)

[curiouswombat]

Gosh - I'd have thought 'smoke' too! But what good news that it wasn't.

[cairistiona7]

I think it's only because I've been to the Rocky Mountains and seen how pine pollen comes off the trees in similar (but green) clouds that I would have even thought to look up cedar pollen (those are the only evergreen trees we have on the property).

I suppose this is the exception that proves the "where there's smoke, there's fire" rule.

[shirebound]

That's fascinating! I never knew about that.

[cairistiona7]

I never did, either. In fact, as I mentioned to Nath, I'm beginning to think we have an Ashe juniper mixed in with our normal red cedars. I will be going on an adventure, I think, to find out!

[mrowe]

How fascinating:-)

And it seems that 'cedar' is one of those names that is applied to a lot of different trees worldwide, and yours is indeed what I would call juniper *g*

[cairistiona7]

And it seems that 'cedar' is one of those names that is applied to a lot of different trees worldwide, and yours is indeed what I would call juniper *g*

Yep. What we have are eastern red cedars, or juniperus virginia. And while I was digging for the Latin name, I discovered the junipers in the video are juniperus ashei or Ashe cedars or Ash junipers (or if you live in Texas, that (#**&($## TREE THAT MAKES ME SNEEZE). Seeing as how I've *never* seen our Easter red cedar trees put out a cloud of pollen like that (I even took a broom to all of them in the front yard and nothing shook loose), I wonder if we have a stray ashe juniper in our woods. They grow mostly to our south, in Arkansas, Oklahoma and more famously east Texas, but the Missouri Conservation Dept site says they also grow in the extreme southern border of Missouri. We're only 50 miles north of there, so one might have somehow grew here, probably "planted" by a seed in bird droppings. I'll have to hack my way through the wilds of our property to find out.