This is the cherry tree in front of our house. I've watched it bloom for 7 springs. Last year, because my daughter thought it was so pretty, I took a picture of it (the top picture). It has always had the gorgeous pale pinkish-white flowers with pink centers so characteristic of the famous cherry trees in the DC area. Charlotte always thought it was funny when they started falling off because they looked so much like a spring snow.
This year, when the cherry blossoms came out, we got a surprise. For the first time in the 8 years we've lived in this house, our cherry tree produced pink blossoms. At first I thought I was just remembering them wrong. You know, mommy mind, too many things to keep track of, surely I'm imagining it. Well, I took a picture. And compared it to last year's picture (which I'd saved in hopes of printing it out for Charlotte). I compared the two side by side. See for yourself. They're not just a shade or two different. Last year they were *white* and this year they are *pink* - really, really pink. I knew that hydrangeas flowers could change color in response the different pH of soils - and I've seen some that were multi-colored on the same bush. But I didn't know cherry trees (or any flowering tree for that matter) could do this. And do it so dramatically.
The scientist in me is going nuts trying to figure out how this is possible. I guess it must have something to do with the non-winter we had in the Mid Atlantic of the US this year. We had almost no snow, or ice, and it never got really cold that it stayed. And I know the sun is at the peak of its 11 year cycle, with all the attendant solar storms and such. But please, if there's an armchair horticulturist out there - somebody please explain this odd phenomenon to me.
Meanwhile, I've got the only chameleon tree on the block...
