So, yes, January is a very early time to see cherry trees start to blossom but what you’re actually seeing are plum trees.
Now both kinds of trees are pretty much the same thing, so no biggee, but plums come out earlier than cherries – global warming doesn’t have anything to do with that.
Oh, here’s what they look like, rather a bit more pink than cherry, in my experience.
Near Clay and Davis, Financial District:
And here’s a nice shot from Flickr:
I’ll tell you, I have no objection in particular about Airbus A380 superjumbo jets flying into and out of SFO, but over the past few years the arrival of this a/c got oversold, way oversold, by SFO, the old mayor’s office and the new mayor’s office.
They went on and on about how farsighted SFO was to become “A380-ready,” but after these kinds of taxiway incidents worldwide, I gotta ask:
Where’s your Messiah now, SFO?
Oh, here it is, at the Paris Air Show, bumping into buildings ‘n stuff. Sacre Bleu – Une Autre Allision!
Click to expand – via Niek van der Zande
(Don’t call it a wing fence (or winglet or sharklet) the way some journalists do, oh no, call it a wingtip fence. Thusly: “The Superjumbo jet just lost another wingtip fence.)
“While the crew had been informed that the taxiway was clear for the A380, said Airbus, and the aircraft was on the centreline, it hit a building belonging to Aeroports de Paris.”
Oh well.
Hey SFO, why don’t you actually do something by getting your runways farther apart so you’ll be future-ready instead of just A380-ready?
Just asking, SFO Bro.
Is new Terminal 2 at SFO really set to “dazzle?”
Sadly no. It’s just another airport terminal right? Let’s keep things in sperpective.
The other dazzling piece of news coming up from Millbrae is Air France saying it will fly in an A380 superjumbo daily from gay Paris during Tourist Season 2011.
The best guess is that the A380 burns about 3% per passenger less than the slightly smaller competition from Boeing. Is that something to get excited about? Not really.
Oh, here we go, here’s an Air France Airbus A380 making friends in New Yawk just yesterday. What a bully! (The YouTube view count just went from 303 views five minutes ago up to 17,000, so let’s call that going viral.)
Click to expand
Them A380′s are big, non?
Let’s hope that SFO can manage these big rigs better than JFK!
Anyway, to review, SFO’s New Terminal Two is Just an Another Airport Terminal, SFO’s New Air France A380 Jet is Just Another Jet.
No alarms, no surprises…
“Air France Flight 7 F-HPJD bound for Paris, was taxiing on a runway when its left wingtip struck the tail of Comair Flight 6293, which had just landed from Boston and was taxiing to its gate at Kennedy, one of the nation’s busiest airports…”
See?
Click to expand
My campaign to get area residents to call plum trees “plum trees” is picking up steam. Now, remember back in aught-eight, when some people called mountain lions “cougars?” Good times,* right? Well, those days are history. And, similarly, tout le 415 will be calling cherry trees “cherry trees” by January 2014 at the latest.
You’ll see.
*”Cougar corners St. Mary’s Hoopster in Danville” – that kind of thing.
First started noticing these blooms a couple of days ago:
Click to expand
Some people think they are cherry blossoms. Check it:
Well it’s late January in San Francisco so it’s time for our sidewalk plum trees to begin blossoming. Yeah, they look a lot like cherry trees and that causes people around town to start talking about how global warming / climate change is making the cherry trees of April wake up three months early or something.
You can double-check with the Friends of the Urban Forest if you want, but I’ll tell you, those flashes of pink you see brightening up the otherwise-dreary Streets of San Francsico these days are early-rising Prunus blireiana, aka Flowering Plum trees, or something similar.
Be patient and you’ll be rewarded with real cherry trees in March – check out the sked at the San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park.
If this January blossom is cherry, I’ll eat my hat:
This will be the scene in the Financh in a couple of months – our wild parrots love all kinds of prunus blossoms of course.
Take heart, Spring is just around the corner…
Well it’s late January in San Francisco so it’s time for our sidewalk plum trees to begin blossoming. Yeah, they look a lot like cherry trees and that causes people around town to start talking about how global warming / climate change is making the cherry trees of April wake up three months early or something.
You can double-check with the Friends of the Urban Forest if you want, but I’ll tell you, those flashes of pink you see brightening up the otherwise-dreary Streets of San Francsico these days are early-rising Prunus blireiana, aka Flowering Plum trees, or something similar.
Be patient and you’ll be rewarded with real cherry trees in March – check out the sked at the San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum in Golden Gate Park.
If this January blossom is cherry, I’ll eat my hat:
This will be the scene in the Financh in a couple of months – our wild parrots love all kinds of prunus blossoms of course.
Take heart, Spring is just around the corner…
Well, considering our balmy January, 2009 it’s only natural to expect the fruit trees of San Francisco, like your cherry and your plum, to start awakening for Spring. That’s good news for the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill, anyway.
Now the cherry trees near the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park still have no buds, but a lot of other trees in the city are already going like gangbusters. Will we have cherry blossoms on Post Street this April, when the annual Japantown Cherry Blossom Festival rolls around?
This is what some trees near Stow Lake looked like in January, 2009
Only Punxsutawney Phil knows for sure.
Don’t tell the wild parrots about the blooms. The wild parrots of San Francisco love to eat flowers, num num:
Happy Ground Hog Day, San Francisco.
