Blooming ash

The ash trees Fraxinus excelsior are at last starting to break out of their winter dormancy; the flowers are in bloom and the leaves are just beginning to burst.

European ashes enjoy a most exotic sexual life. The flowers, which are without petals, and are wind-pollinated, open before the leaves. Both male and female flowers can occur on the same tree, but it is more common to find all male and all female trees. Best of all, a tree that is all male one year can produce female flowers the next, and similarly a female tree can become male. Thank goodness humans aren't like that, I would never have coped!

I think that I have rather overdone the processing!