I’m stealing this one completely from P. Z. Myers’ Pharyngula. It’s just too good.
The daffodils are lovely — I recall when they’d bloom just about Easter in Utah, and Washington, D.C. Here in Dallas, our daffies depart before March 15, often not bothering to stick around until Easter.
But the real treat is the tree in the background. It’s just another tree early in the spring, not yet leafed out. But this one is special.
Caucasian Wingnut Tree (Pterocarya fraxinifolia ) and native daffodils in Warley place Nature reserve. © Copyright Glyn Baker and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Pterocarya fraxinifolia (tree in the background) – common name, “caucasian wingnut” – in the Warley Place Nature Preserve, in Essex, England. Photo by Glyn Baker.
Its common name is “caucasian wingnut.” You can’t make this stuff up. Reality is always much more entertaining than fiction.
Wikipedia’s entry is primed for comedy:
Species
There are six species of wingnut.
- Pterocarya fraxinifolia – Caucasian Wingnut. Caucasus and Elburz mountains in southwest Asia.
- Pterocarya hupehensis – Hubei Wingnut. Central China.
- Pterocarya macroptera – Large-winged Wingnut. West and southwest China.
- Pterocarya rhoifolia – Japanese Wingnut. Japan, eastern China (Shandong).
- Pterocarya stenoptera – Chinese Wingnut. China, widespread.
- Pterocarya tonkinensis – Tonkin Wingnut. Southernmost China (Yunnan), Indo-China.
Another species from China, the Wheel Wingnut with similar foliage but an unusual circular wing right round the nut (instead of two wings at the sides), previously listed as Pterocarya paliurus, has now been transferred to a new genus, as Cyclocarya paliurus.
Uses
Wingnuts are very attractive, large and fast-growing trees, occasionally planted in parks and large gardens. The most common in general cultivation outside Asia is P. fraxinifolia, but the most attractive is probably P. rhoifolia. The hybrid P. x rehderiana, a cross between P. fraxinifolia and P. stenoptera, is even faster-growing and has occasionally been planted for timber production. The wood is of good quality, similar to walnut, though not quite so dense and strong.
Japanese wingnuts? Chinese wingnuts? Tonkin wingnuts (for all you Vietnam war historians out there)?
Wow. Just wow.
More, if you care:
- Photos from Warley Place, “An Essex Wildlife Preserve”
- Tree details at the Dutch Tree Guide (it’s a European tree)
- Listing at the Keele University Arboretum
- New distribution of the tree found in Turkey, where it’s native — proposal to preserve the stand, from The Journal of Environmental Biology via Pub-Med
- There’s at least one specimen on the campus of Reed College, in Portland, Oregon. Where else in the U.S.?
- Dave’s Garden lists USDA Hardiness Zone information on the tree — and reports there are specimens in Georgetown and Louisville, Kentucky, and in Framingham, Massachusetts
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Tony is a vampire? A blood sucker? Who knew.
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Just to clarify, I do not for one second understand this post to be about “hate speech”. Someone would have to really distort the context to make that argument.
So colour me unsurprised that Mr. Anthony Watts did that.
What truly counts as hate speech is calling for climate scientist to be ‘drawn and quartered’, commit Hari Kari, or be flogged in public.
Don’t recall seeing Mr. Anthony Watts condemning Beck and Limbaugh and Morano….why the double standard Mr. Anthony Watts?
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Mr. Anthony Watts, we are trying to shed some light on, amongst other things, you making fallacious and libelous statements against NOAA. Do you have the integrity, the decency and the fortitude to apologize? Many would welcome and be impressed by such an apology, so I do not see the down side of doing the right thing.
As for hate speech, we only need peruse your blog to find plenty of hate talk, so please don’t throw stones in glass houses Mr. Watts. While you are here do you also want to elaborate on how you and Charles investigate IP addresses of people who visit your site and who do not agree with what you say or who try to correct you?
It is high time for Pearce et al. to shed some critical light on WUWT et al.
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Wow, Anthony. Could you please answer Ed’s question? I’d also like to see you admit your mistaken claim regarding the effect of station number on bias of the temperature record (as per Tamino, et al.’s analysis). I’d post at your place, but that seems to be impossible for me.
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You know, if one of my friends had posted what Anthony said, I’d have thought it was a joke for sure.
I’m not sure. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt, though. I mean, you did set yourself up for it…
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Oh, and, evidently I can’t joke about sunlight, either, without someone straining to take it wrong.
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In the old First Class section of the Boy Scout Handbook, Boy Scouts learned that sunlight kills harmful micro-organisms. In the absence of other ways to sterilize a bandage, Scouts learned to use sunlight were it available.
In journalism, one of the philosophical bases of the work was to “cast sunlight” in the dark corners of human endeavor, to reveal things that need to be changed, and to metaphorically kill harmful “micro-organisms.”
We call open meetings acts and freedom of information acts “sunshine laws,” in the profession of journalism.
Who doesn’t love sunlight?
Even the true caucasian wingnut craves sunlight. [Not sure, but probably also accurate of “true Scotsmen.”]
Since when is freedom of information, sunlight on government, or killing pathogens “hate speech?”
Now that the House of Commons has let some sunlight into the issue, how are those purloined e-mails working for you, Anthony?
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“Sunlight kills those wingnuts that plague the internet. It’s not always fast, though.”
More hate speech from Ed Darrell, the teacher of young minds
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I’d make some joke about poison, but it would be taken wrong, whether I mentioned Round Up or DDT.
Sunlight. Sunlight kills those wingnuts that plague the internet. It’s not always fast, though.
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I hear that wingnuts have, over the past few years, spread rapidly on the internet. I’ve noticed a few of the fraxinifolia variety right here on your blog, Ed, and one or two have popped up on mine.
Are there any preventative measures you can take to stop them from appearing? They take so much time to cut down and quite often, when you lop off a limb, the next time you look it’s there again, waving in your face!
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