A mystery tree to identify

Let's have some fun!  You readers haven't had a challenge for awhile. Here's a photo, the only photo, that TPP got by email today.  Can I identify this tree?  What other information do we have? Well, it's a tree.  It was photographed in Indiana, which really narrows things down a lot.  And if you notice, there's a garden fence, so it could be an exotic ornamental. Oh, yes, TPP got this one.

Black Friday - Green Saturday

After shopping until you dropped yesterday on Black Friday, a event religiously avoided by TPP, the Christmas season officially begins.  This means that people will be shopping for a conifer tree.  It turns out that 364 days ago, while avoiding Black Friday, TPP posted a blog providing simple description of how to distinguish your basic conifer genera, pines, firs, and doug-firs used as Christmas trees here in easter North America.  Our tree will be bought today, not because it will be put on display right away, but because all these trees have been harvested and are just sitting around.  So buy one now, and put it in a bucket of water until you're ready to move it into the house.  It also helps to spray the tree with WiltProof, if you have any left over from spraying the rhododendrons. 
Of course, in Australia, in Queensland, who knows what our tree was?  Somehow that information was lost from memory.  And in the early days of our wedded life the Phactors had a large, spiny Euphorb that served as our tree, an aberration that probably warped our poor daughter during her infancy.  Ultimately this tree out grew our house so we changed to the traditional conifer. 

Holiday season retrospective

Quite a few holiday posts have accumulated over the past couple of years, and like watching the miracle on 42nd street for the 42nd time, why not do a bit of a retrospective?
There was a time when the Phactors did not decorate the usual evergreen tree, and while it probably warped the F1, it was easy to hang ornaments.
Almost every year someone asks about whether it's ecologically sound to have a real tree and how to tell a "pine" tree from a "fur" (Yes, that's what they actually asked.)
Let's see the Phactor has also covered holly (or maybe uncovered would be more accurate) and mistletoe, and how these symbols of the season are pagan in origin.
Lastly you'll be glad to know that our non-hardy azalea is blooming right on schedule and now has its seasonal decorations too.
Now back to the pile of student papers on my desk.

Build Botany for National Security

Let's see, the dwindling of botany as a field of study among the biological sciences seems to suggest that no one worries about being miserable, naked, or hungry. So let's try this.
Wake up America! As botanical knowledge declines, our national security is threatened as so aptly demonstrated by this cartoon. All those alien trees creeping into our landscape could be harboring terrorists, socialists, or even tree-hugging liberals! But would you ever know, native versus indigenous? The Phactor has long wondered if the Princess Tree invasion might be at the root of China's successful espionage efforts in the USA. Didn't you notice how many and how quickly they have sprung up around the Pentagon? The camera lens protruding from the tree holes, it's a dead give away, but first you have to cure the tree blindness of our security community! Just a billion or two would give my taxonomy and plant identification class a real shot in the arm, and none of it would be wasted either, but a Phytophactor logo will be needed for the doors of the Hummer field vehicles.