Royal Weed

photo from agebb.missouri.edu

The princess tree, royal paulownia (paulownia tomentosa -- I bet she tormented them), is blooming right now. These showly flowers can get to be two inches long. It's a very handsome tree in bloom and often shows up in empty lots and other disturbed areas because it's a ready colonizer. For instance, there was one visible from Green-Wood's Battle Hill, outside of the cemetery and across the street and in the backyard of a new building that's blocking some of the view from the Hill. I also passed one yesterday that had taken root just where the S train emerges from underneath Washington Avenue, but all the flowers were on the other side of the fencing that keeps the riff-raff off the tracks. I couldn't get my nose in them. There's also an old brute of one next to the Prospect Park HQ at the Litchfield Villa. That Princess has become a czarina, maimed and stumpy but still putting on a show in spring time, for the ball.