Nature Conservancy 5th Annual Digital Photo Competition

I recieved an email from the Nature Conservancy recently and wanted to share it with you...

Dear Craig,

Thanks for all the great photos and info about trees. I never knew what a tamarind tree looked like - in fact there are so many trees that I can't identify. Which sort of brings me to a favor I'd like to ask of you.

The Nature Conservancy is holding its 5th Annual Digital Photo Competition and we'd like to invite all nature-loving shutterbugs to enter their favorite shots! Can you please help us by giving us a mention in your blog so your readers know it's time to enter?

We can talk endlessly about the importance of conservation but mere words cannot compete with the visual impact of a great photo. Take a look at last year's Grand Prize-winning photograph by Carol Grant - http://my.nature.org/photography/2009-winners.html. Beautiful photographs of nature encourage people to go out and see for themselves what is truly important to conserve.

This year, 35 photos will be selected as honorable mentions and finalists. The winner will be selected by public vote and featured on the cover of The Nature Conservancy's 2012 calendar, which reaches over 2 million households, and on our website - http://www.nature.org/ .

It's easy to submit photos! Contestants can enter using the Conservancy's free
Flickr(TM) photo sharing group at - http://www.flickr.com/groups/thenatureconservancy/.

All photos submitted to Flickr(TM) should include the tag - "PhotoContest-TNC10". Deadline for submissions is October 4, 2010 11:59 PST.

For more information visit - http://my.nature.org/photography/. Please feel free to email me with your questions.

Thank you,

Midori Matsuyama
Online Outreach
The Nature Conservancy
http://www.nature.org/

Best of Luck Everyone!

Pinus rigida - Pitch Pine

I found this Pitch Pine at the Botanical Gardens of Asheville today. See www.ashevillebotanicalgardens.org. Pitch Pines often have sprouts coming from their lower trunks. I observed and photographed these sprouts on the Pitch Pine. Very nice ID tip.

Rebecca
http://ayearwiththetrees.blogspot.com/

Ficus carica - Common Fig

Ficus carica - Common Fig

This is a small tree grows to 23 to 33 feet and up to 7 inches in diameter. The Fig Tree has a smooth grey bark. The fig tree leaves are bright green, alternate, simple and rather large. They are deeply lobed with 1 - 5 sinuses. They have rough hairs on the upper part of the leaf and soft hairs on the underside of the leaf.

The fig tree is thought to be native to Western Asia. It was introduced to Virginia around the 1700s. Thomas Jefferson had a fruit orchard where he planted many fig trees at Monticello. Monticello is in Charlottesville, Virginia, and you can read more at www.monticello.org.

The fig tree is referred to as the Tree of Life and Knowledge. The Bodhi tree, under which Buddha meditated, was a variety of the fig tree, a cutting of which is said to be in Ceylon.

The fruit of the fig tree is ready to eat twice a year, in the spring (in some parts of the world) and in the late summer or early fall. This fruit is actually the flower and seeds which grow together to make what is called the fig. Figs are one of best sources of calcium and fiber. Figs are also are rich in potassium and magnesium.

The beautiful, healthy fig tree pictured here lives in my friend, Heather's yard; she took me to see this tree where I photographed it. She was so gracious when she gave me some figs to eat.

The photo below is a picture of the figs she gave me. I took the figs to my daughter's studio where she helped me photograph them on Liz's beautiful red plate. Thank you Heather, Brooke, and Liz for this beautiful image of the figs.  By the way, they were delicious.  I highly recommend finding some fresh figs this summer and enjoy!!

I found a very interesting website that tracks the trees in San Francisco and reports the environmental impact the trees have on the environment. I found that there are nine fig trees reported on this website. Their impact is reported as follows:

817 pound reduction in carbon dioxide gas
7,451 gallons of water were conserved
1,039 kWH were conserved
and 2 pounds of air pollutants were conserved

Thank you to to the Urban Forest folks for reporting this. You can find more information at:
Urbanforestmap.org

Here is a quote that seems appropriate:

"Never does nature say one thing, and wisdom another." Juvenal, Rome

Till next time,

Rebecca

Summer Updates

EarlyForest.Com has been idle for far too long. I am gathering materials to begin posting again shortly (not that I ever ran out of material to post).

In the meantime some other exciting stuff is going on here...

Blogger.Com (our blog/website host) has recently launched a new template builder that I have started playing around with this weekend. You can see the changes to the background & stuff right now. I also managed the goof a few things up in the process (I liked the tags list best in the old drop down menu format, so hopefully I can repair that soon). I also plan on putting together a new header image soon.

I am also excited to welcome a new team member to the blog. Rebecca is a naturalist from North Carolina & author of tree blog A Year with the Trees. Rebecca, like Arati, will be posting directly to EarlyForest.Com. We look forward to having her take part in the website!