Weeds are trying to tell you something

Mrs ERJ and I were walking in Lansing's Adado Riverfront Park looking at invasive Bradford Flowering Pear trees taking over the riverbank.

Bradford Pear, Pyrus calleryana, makes a dandy pear rootstock especially for Asian pears. And pears are the single best fruit to grow when in a no-spray environment because worms cannot mine enough protein from the fruit to grow.

Later that day I saw a specimen with larger-than-species fruit. I checked them out and they were almost edible. The leave suggest that it was a grafted tree that died and the rootstock is a P. calleryana-pyrifolia hybrid.

Gobs of fruit on this tree. The strait species is about pea sized.

A gallon of the fruit may have followed me home.

Pure calleryanna leaf on left and a hybrid on the right.

Another clue involves the leaves. Calleryanna hangs onto its leaves into November. It wants to be a tropical tree. Pyrifolia is a temperate species and dumps it leaves. If you look at the photo of the tree you will see very few leaves hanging on.

Gratuitous picture

A gentleman was feeding ducks at Adado Riverfront park and noticed my camera. He asked if I wanted an action shot and then frisbeed a slice of bread out into deep water.

Yep, good action shot.