I was walking through Central Park this past weekend with my partner Kevin heading to the zoo . As we made down from 70th and 5th Ave we came across this beautiful stand of 
Carolina silverbell/Halesia tetraptera. It felt like we were walking inside a snow globe with all the branches covered in dangling flowers. I am more familiar seeing them as a single trunk but here they are multi trunked and it gave them a much more open, dreamy feel. And since the flowers emerge before the leaves, there is more to dream into.
Halesias are a really underused specimen that deserves more attention and praise for it's easy habit, adaptability, controlled size for smaller spaces and of course, the flowers. And what isn't there to love about flowering trees? Pretty, flowery, springy...yes!
For more on Halesias, flowering and non flowering trees, try these two sites. Happy hunting and dreaming.
http://www.hort.uconn.edu/plants/index.html
http://www.treesaregood.org/
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