Today is a good day

Its a lovely day out. Everything so happy and brilliant green, except the evergreens (hollies and magnolias) which are starting to lose some leaves and so are somewhat yellowish, and so they match the bright green at least.

I met with my adviser this morning, and feel far, far less hopeless about being able to analyze my dissertation materials (knock on laminate). We at first were making no progress using the criteria we were given at the Sat workshop, but then busted out the comparative materials and bingo! identifications were made (if tentative). And I was on the right track, and my adviser agrees (in fact, I was on the right track faster than she was, which is cool). So that is excellent. No mention was made of the alternative dissertation project, so I'm just going to treat that as an emergency plan B and stash it in the back of my head.

Also, I met a very interesting tree today at the Coker arboretum. Davida involucrata, the Dove tree. Apparently it was originally from China. Such interesting flowers, two petals which look like pale leaves, a huge superior ovary with multiple pistils and many many stamens. I guess it selfs, but there were also some flowers that were male, so its confusing.
Here is a picture: http://www.gardenwizard.info/du/directory/treesd/dtreesd/davidia/involucrata.htm

This time of year finds me very distracted when walking about, as everything around here is flowering. Very exciting!