Common Guava - Psidium guajava

The Common Guava (Psidium guajaya) is the type species for the 100 member Psidium genus. It also goes by the names Apple Guava, Brazilian Guava or often just Guava. It is an edible fruit tree that is quite common in tropical countries. The tree itself is not very large which is a rather good thing if you are like me and enjoy picking its fruits. Most of the trees that I have seen have not been more than 15-20 feet tall.

I took the pictures for this post in the "Concepción" historical-botanical garden in Malaga, Spain along what is called the "Around the World in 80 Trees" trail. My exposure to this tree however goes quite a bit farther back to when I was groing up in Papua New Guinea. These trees are not navite to PNG but have been widely planted and grow quite well.

We had a Cherry Guava tree in our yard but several of our neighboors had the Common Guava tree in theirs. When I was a kid we used to sneak through the back yards of our neighboors and grab a few of the ripe fruits on the sly. Not many of these neighboors would be too upset however as there was normally enough fruits on the trees and a good number of them would end up rotting on the ground.

I remember one day when my best friend and I found a Guava tree heavily laden with beautiful ripe fruit. We quickly plucked a few of the best looking ones off the tree. While my friend took a big bite out of one of his Guavas I broke one of mine open to check what it looked like on the inside. Mine was crawling with worms! I told my buddy to take a look at the inside of mine and his face suddenly turned a pale green color and a moment later was spitting and gaging all over the place trying to get every trace of the worm ladden Guava out of his system.
The Guavas in these pictures (from a Guava that I picked up off the ground and did not eat) did not have any worms.

Ripe Guavas have a thin yellow skin that encloses a soft peach colored "meat" that contains the seeds. The entire fruit is edible, skin, seeds and meat but often we would just eat the meat and seeds since we had not washed the outside of the fruit.

Vine Maple (Acer circinatum) in fall color

The Vine Maple (tree species name: Acer circinatum) is a small maple tree species native to the Northwestern United States and I have seen on many occasions in and around Portland and Seattle. The images in this posted were taken from trees in both of these cities. The leaves in full autumn color are from a tree in North Seattle and the green leaves come from a tree in the Mount Tabor park in Portland. The picture below is of the winged "samara" seeds of this maple tree species that float like little helicopters when released into the wind.

The colorful leaves of the Vine Maple in autumn range in color from red to orange to yellow and green with many striking color patterns. The picture below is from a tree that I found along the eastern bank of Lake Sammamish near Seattle.

This tree species is also a common sight along the trails in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic area. One of the most visited of these is the trail leading up to Multnomah falls. Another maple tree species along that trail is the "Big Leaf Maple" (Acer macrophyllum), which are the trees along the trail that are covered in green moss and small ferns.
The Vine Maple tends to grow with multiple stems or trunks and rarely reaches more than 30ft in height.
Other Maple trees that I have posted about are the Big Leaf Maple, the Red Maple, the Boxelder Maple, Sycamore Maple and the Montpellier Maple.

Mountain Pine - Pinus mugo subsp. uncinata

The Mountain pine tree (species name: Pinus mugo subsp. uncinata or sometimes just referred to as pinus uncinata) is a tree native to eastern Spain at fairly high altitudes in the Pyranees mountains. I had come across this tree species some months back in various online forums in Spanish where there is a debate as to which is the true "Pino negro" (Black Pine in Spanish). It seems that there are at least pine tree species in Spain that are commonly called Pino Negro and this species is one of them. The other is the pine tree species Pinus nigra (European Black Pine) that I blogged about last month. They are similar trees but from my observations they are easily distinguished from their cones.
The image above shows a new forming cone and the needles which occur in pairs and are about 3 inches long and fairly stiff. In the picture below you can see the pollen cones and the new leaf growth.

The cones are green before they mature and then turn a beautiful brown color. The tips of the scales give the appearance of being pointed backwards.
I did pick up some opened cones on the ground and found that when they are fully opened they are more difficult to distiguish from other pine tree species such as the p. nigra or the p. sylvestris (Scotts pine).
I took these pictures in the small ski resort town of La Molina in the Catalan region of Spain. Another evergreen tree species in and around this town was the Nordmann fir.

Nordmann Fir - Abies nordmanniana

The Nordmann Fir tree (species name: Abies nordmanniana) is a popular Christmas tree species because of its dark green color, its dense foliage, its rounded needles and its drought resistance which keeps the needles from falling off too soon.
This fir tree species that also goes by the names Caucasian fir or Turkish fir is an evergreen coniferous tree native to the mountains from Turkey to the Rusian Caucas region. I took these photographs in the small ski resort town of "La Molina" in the Pyrenees mountains of Catalunia, Spain. The altitude at this location is 1700 meters above sea level.

As you can see from these images the needle like leaves have a different color pattern on the top and the bottom of the leaves. On the top side they are a solid dark green while on the bottom side they have two whitish lines down each side (another way to describe it is that there are white on the bottom with a dark treen border and a green line down the middle of the flat leafe. These leaves were about 2cm long. Notice also that the leaves are rounded on the ends and even have a slight apex like notch as the ends of some of the leaves.

The cones of this fir species grow at the top of the tall trees but I was able to find a shorter tree with cones where I could get close enough to get a few good images. From what I have read these cones change color as they mature. These young cones had an almost dark blue-green color. The lighter brown colored "exserted bracts" are another distinctive feature of this tree.
The scales of these cones detach and fall off while the stem of the cone remains in the tree. Notice also that these cones grow quite vertical and straight. It is quite common to see a good number of these empty stems on the branches near the top of these trees.

The bark of the Nordmann fir is light gray in color and fairly smooth with blister like bumps.

For a fir tree that is native to Spain check out the "Spanish fir - Abies pinsapo".