Irritating and beautiful

New growth and pollen cones of a pitch pine, a common tree on Cape Cod. It’s very flammable.

— Photo by Famartin

“Now I know summer is here, no matter how cold it is at night, for when I went out to the car this morning, the windshield was dusted with orange and the whole shiny dark blue of the body was powdered. The pine pollen has come! This is a thick, almost oily deposit that penetrates everything. If you close a room and lock the windows, the sills will be drifted with the pollen the next morning. The floors turn orange.’’

— Gladys Taber, in My Own Cape Cod (1971)