Five bloomin' weeks early

 I shot these last year --- on May 25th! This year picture captures them in full bloom and it is only April 16th!

With herbicides banned, the grass has blossoms.

Are these trees native to southwestern Ontario? Quite possibly. Observing that hardwood forests in southwestern Ontario shared many characteristics with forests as far south as the Carolinas, botanists named this area Ontario’s Carolinian Zone.

The area's Carolinian forests were originally enriched by tulip, sassafras, Kentucky coffee, cucumber magnolia, black gum, and papaw. Sadly, more than 40 per cent of the national list of endangered and threatened species are found here. In some parts of southwestern Ontario, agricultural and residential pressures have destroyed more than 90 per cent of the original Carolinian forest.