Well Galled

I hung a bird feeded in the back yard and did some cleaning today. This one tree, whose species I have forgotten again, is the only one on the property that has galls. Both on the bark and the leaves, as you see, there are these growths, stimulated by insects who have left their larvae on the tree.

Years ago I did not know what a plant gall was, so if asked about this tree I'd have said that it's got some sort of crud. But now I know Ceridwen, the great blipster & shade-tree cecidologist.

Now I could never see a plant gall without knowing that it's a plant gall, even if I still think it looks a bit cruddy.

I chose the galls as my blip because I always notice them and when I do, I feel good about knowing why they exist and what they're called.

This was a sunny, chilly, windy spring day.