Day 3

Arboretum:  noun.  A botanical garden devoted to trees.  That’s where I went today.  Thankfully, we didn’t have to walk to the Cox Arboretum.

Our task today was to photograph five different types of trees and at least one animal in the park.  With that information, we were to identify the tress that we’d observed.  We observed the leaves, overall shape, and bark of each tree.  Borrowing from yesterday’s lesson and blog, I spent some time looking closely at the leaves.  I noticed there were vein-like structures on the backs of the leaves that reminded me of the veins in my body.

We identified the types of tress we’d photographed by the shapes of the their leaves.  Comparing the leaves to the pictures on a website, we figured out the types of trees we’d seen.  You’ll notice some of the trees are evergreens.  Are the needles on these trees really leaves?  Yes, they are.  The needles on the pine tree perform the same functions as the large leaves on the big oak trees. 

This is a Bald Cypress tree

This is a Cottonwood tree

This is a Blue Spruce and below is it's needles

This is a long needle pine tree

This is a maple tree

After we completed this task, we had some free time to explore the arboretum.  We spent some time in a tree house.  That was fun, but to be honest it wasn’t actually high in a tree.  The treehouse was made of wood, but just wasn’t built in an actual tree.  We used the treehouse as the place for us to eat our bag lunch.  While in the treehouse, we saw a deer walking through the brush.  Seemed odd the deer was walking through the thick brush when there was a game trail 20 feet away.  Why do you suppose she didn’t use the trail?  Once we were out of the treehouse, we walked around the park for about 15 minutes before it was time to go back to the school.