Carpet of white

For a brief few days last week, the woods seemed awash with a carpet of white -- a spectacular flowering of dogwoods in bloom.

It is hard to tell without scientific, year-to-year measurement, but the dogwoods appeared more numerous, more vibrant, more colorful and definitely more alive than in recent years. Since the mid 1970s, wild dogwood trees all across the mountains of Southern Appalachia have been dying from a fungal disease called Dogwood Anthracnose (discula destructiva).

But they seem to resist the blight somewhat if they get a lot of sunlight, and there was more sunlight than normally on the hillside below our house this year -- many of the scrub pine trees had fallen to another infestation, the Southern Pine Beetle. The dogwoods took advantage of this cycle of death and rebirth to make for a show of white blooms.

Then, we had five days in a row of heavy rain, the hardwood trees (mostly tulip poplar, oaks, sourwoods, persimmons and red maple) all leafed out at the same time, bringing shade back to our land.

But for a brief few days last week, the woods seemed awash with a carpet of white. It was beautiful.