Maple flowers

A couple more pictures from my Tuesday walk in the woods.  One small shrub-like tree abundant in the Mohonk Preserve on the Shawangunk Ridge is the striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum).  It's called striped maple because the trunks of the saplings are distinctively green and white vertically striped (the large goose-foot-shaped leaf is also distinctive).

See the hanging clusters of green flowers (click to enlarge).  Many people aren't aware of this, but deciduous trees (those that lose their leaves seasonally - most trees, in other words) belong to a group of plants known as the angiosperms or flowering plants.  You don't always notice or see flowers on trees, many are very inconspicuous, but they have them.

I just thought they were neat to see.