Riddle of the cypress

 One of the puzzles of spring: Some — not all — of the cypress trees on Woodlawn Lake are putting out leaves. The trees at Elmendorf Lake are still bare.

I’ve thought about the possibilities: Woodlawn Lake might be more sheltered from the last cold fronts. (The last freeze was just eight days ago.) Perhaps it’s the genetics of related trees, the family of cypress trees at Woodlawn being earlier bloomers than the family a couple of miles south.

But at Woodlawn, there are four cypress trees in a row, two in leaf, two bare. They alternate: leafy, bare, leafy, bare.

It’s one of my favorite themes: We can make generalizations about kinds of things in nature, but the individual living things, the plants and animals, don’t necessarily follow the rules.

I think that part of the puzzle might be gardener’s bias. Our cultivated plants, through natural selection, might have more regular — or more limited — habits than those in the wild. If we don’t see those regular habits, something must be wrong.