'Color drama' in the spring

No outdoor experience compares to being in the woods when the day dawns on a gorgeous spring morning. The progression of color returning to the bleak winter landscape has always captivated me.

It starts with a red tint that comes over our mountains, as the red sparks the transformation in early April. Soon, the sugar maple adds a yellowishgreen blossom. The quaken aspen throws out its catkins, first adding white to the forest edges and the blossoming to green, sending snows of fuzzy seed carrying parachutes throughout the land.

By the opening of trout season, there's a yellow tint to thickets alongside area streams and wetlands, as the aromatic spicebush emerges.

Multiflora rose, Japanese barberry, and exotic bush honeysuckle generally green up the second week of April. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why these three plants are invasive and displace many of our native plants, degrading habitat in the process.

Somewhere around the middle of April willow catkins are in full bloom. Surrounding our wetlands and streams, many of the willow species, such as pussy willow, put on a spectacular smallscale display.

Soon, my favorite flowering tree makes its spring debut. The showy white flowers of the Allegheny serviceberry or Juneberry have no equal, except for perhaps those of the flowering dogwood.

Most of the year the serviceberry lives a rather inconspicuous life. Few take notice of this small tree except for bears, which ravage the serviceberry while gobbling up its tasty midsummer fruit. In April, though, the serviceberry is unequaled in aesthetic quality, if only for a short two weeks.

Near the end of the serviceberry's floral tenure, toward the end of April, the hobblebush's showy white flower clusters appear. They're composed of a row of large-petal showy flowers on the perimeter with smaller, less impressive flowers in the center.

Appreciate it while you can, because its days are numbered. The exotic viburnum leaf beetle can now be found defoliating our viburnums in Cameron and Potter Counties, spelling disaster for both the hobblebush and our other native viburnums- American cranberry bush, nannyberry, arrow-wood, wild raisin, and maple-leaf viburnum.

Flowering dogwood steals the scene the first part of May with its simple, yet elegant large white flower petals. Unfortunately, experts claim that our flowering dogwood populations are also under attack, as a result of the exotic anthracnose fungus sweeping across Pennsylvania.

By mid-May the forest is becoming greener by the day and the color of pink emerges from the gorgeous wild azalea. It stands out along a rocky ridge or laurel patch like a rose among thorns, appearing to be better suited to some tropical jungle than to here in the big woods.

By the end of May the transformation is nearly complete, as green dominates the landscape, while mountain laurel and rhododendron have yet to throw in their visual say.

Spring is a great time to be outside, paying attention to the colorful drama.