My previous post was a short photo-essay on a non-native tree, the pistache. The current one is more typical of my work in that it focuses on a native species, the Mountain Ash, and pays some attention to the season, in this case the "holiday" season. To partially answer my title question: Christmas is partly about red and green, thus the Mountain Ash. It is also about buying lots of stuff, thus the despicable message on the window of a local shop. Maybe this was meant to be satirical, but maybe it wasn't. It might be interesting to do a natural history of Black Friday. Some merchants are acting a bit sheepish and apologetic about continuing the pressure to launch the Christmas shopping season earlier and earlier, yet doing it anyway. One such example is a merchant calling the big day "plaid Friday." I hope that posting the bottom photo will suffice to get my cynical streak out of the way. Then, over the coming days I will post items about ties between nature and traditional celebrations of the season. From the perspective of a naturalist, the many different pagan celebrations are the richer field to mine. Stay tuned, and Happy Thanksgiving.
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