my thoughts about this image are: 1)  After more than two years of walking the same path, how can I not have noticed this plant before?, and 2) it is almost impossible to identify plants in winter. are those dark spots flowers? berries? galls? dried leaves? on a related subject, we are currently tapping a couple of maple trees in our back yard to make maple syrup, and my husband, a nonprofessional but knowledgeable lover of the trees of this region, just spent an hour he couldn’t really afford this late in tax season researching, and failing to decide, whether the bark on one of the trees in our front yard was the bark of an ash or a box elder, the latter of which is in the maple family, and can be tapped for syrup. we’ll know in a month or so, when the leaves burst from their buds, and the sap has long since stopped running. all of which, i suppose, is a further invitation to pay attention. this summer, when it won’t seem to matter, we will risk taking for granted once again that the tree in the front yard with the low fork, and the gray fissured bark, is an ash, or a box elder, although the difference could be crucial the following march.

unidentified late winter stem

lake vadnais, saint paul, minnesota