Marcia Bonta

  • Red Maples: A Celebration of Red

    Sometime in mid-March, after the eastern phoebes have returned, our red maple tree buds turn a deeper scarlet, adding welcome color to our forest. Shortly thereafter I catch the faint scent of their opening red and orange flowers. The clusters of dangling, bell-shaped red flowers with red forked tongues (stigmas) are female while the orange…

  • The Tree of Great Peace

    The Iroquois called it the “Tree of Great Peace.” Its cluster of five needles to a bundle represented the five nations of the Iroquois and its spreading roots, reaching east, north, west, and south were the roots of peace that extended to all peoples. We call this tree, more prosaically, eastern white pine — Pinus…