Spring Colours. White. Purple-Leaf Plum and Cherry tree in flower.

This month the landscape is being painted with spring colours of blooming trees, and there’s a lot of hectic activity around them.

Trees are one of the most beautiful species in this world and some of my favourite creatures. Like the rest of the plants trees are producers, their waste product is oxygen that is indispensable for most life, while we are useless consumers smothering ourselves and consequently the planet with our waste product that is basically toxic shit. They provide shelter, food, medicines, shade, moisture, beauty, raw material for musical instruments among other countless things. And how do we treat them in return for their gifts? We fell, burn and poison them with contamination or pollution as sign of gratitude, which means we’re diligently digging our own grave.

Anyway, let’s enjoy their matchless beauty and hope they will survive in spite of us.
Purple-leaf plum or cherry plum (Prunus Pissardii Nigra) is a curious tree since it has reddish brown foliage. It's one of the first to flower in spring, and the flowers are usually pinkish white.

Purple-leaf plum in full blossom. (CC by-nc-sa )

Purple-leaf or cherry plum flower with a wasp. (by-nc-nd)



Purple-leaf plum twig close-up. (© 2011 LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Purple-leaf plum (Cherry plum — Prunus Pissardii).
(© 2011 LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Purple-leaf or cherry plum flowers.
(© 2011 LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Actually, white is the colour I like the least. I associate it with nothingness, void, cold. But natural white is a different story. Soft shadows playing on the petals enhance the feel of purity and tenderness.

Apple Cherry tree blossom close-up. (© 2011 LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Apple trees have a swarm of visitors these days: bees, bumblebees, wasps, butterflies, flies, and other unidentified bugs humming round the flowers. After all, insects and flowers have been made for each other.

Apple Cherry tree blossom and black bumblebee.
(© 2011 LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Apple Cherry tree flowers and a busy bumblebee.
(© 2011 LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Bumblebee on blooming apple Cherry tree twig.
(© 2011 LightColourShade. All rights reserved)



Bumblebee on apple Cherry tree flower close-up. (by-nc-nd)

Black-and-white spotted beetle. (by-nc-nd)

Black bummblebee perched on apple Cherry tree blossom. (by-nc-nd)

For idyllic scene, few things can beat a butterfly or a bird perched on a blooming twig.

Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria aegeria) butterfly on apple Cherry tree flower.
(© LightColourShade. All rights reserved)

Bees play an important role in pollinating flower plants, but their number has dramatically decreased almost certainly due to pesticides, the loss of the flower-rich habitat on which they depend for food, an intensification of agricultural systems, which has taken its toll on the abundance and diversity of wild flowers, etc…

Bee on apple Cherry tree flower. (by-nc-nd)

Marx said labour made man out of ape. However, who toils more than bees (only the Chinese would beat them)? Yet apparently, they haven’t changed significantly in the last million of years, have they?. Actually, some theorists maintain that the opposite is true: labour made man into ape.

Bee collecting nectar from apple Cherry tree flowers. (by-nc-nd)

Butterfly and bee buzzing round apple Cherry  tree flowers. (by-nc-nd)

Butterfly on apple Cherry tree blossom.
(by-nc-nd)

Butterfly on apple Cherry tree flowers. (by-nc-nd)

Green fly on apple Cherry tree flower. (by-nc-nd)

Spider on apple tree leaf. (by-nc-nd) 



Wasp collecting nectar from apple Cherry tree flower. (by-nc-nd)