There are certain native plants that seem invasive. Populus trichocarpa, or the black cottonwood, is one. Its seeds fly on fluffy down in June every year, and the resulting seedlings come up by the thousands in any damp location. They grow quickly, and produce lots of root suckers. They can be a bit of a pest as a result.
In the past couple of months, I've gone through a bunch of personal weirdness- mostly romantic angst. I know that's my usual subject of whining, so I won't subject you to it now. Needless to say, it has resulted in restlessness and sleepless nights.
In order to get my shit back together, I quit drinking alcohol and I've been taking walks- sometimes up to three per day. Sometimes my phone logs 30,000 steps in a day. It has had a good effect on my health and mood.
One of my walking routes involves a trail through a wetland area, populated by lots of Populus (see what I did there?) After walking the trail dozens of times, I finally looked more closely at the yellowing leaves of one cottonwood branch.
I had noticed the yellow leaves before, but they only registered as sick leaves, yellowing in the August heat. Upon closer inspection, however, I noticed that they are variegated. And rather nicely variegated at that
Imagine a large tree with foliage like this:
As I've discovered before, though, sometimes such variegations are unstable and quickly revert to green. This one looks promising, so we will see.
In the meantime, if you never hear from me again, you will know that my brain finally exploded from romantic entanglements. I suppose there are worse ways to die...
