SPICEBUSH BEAUTIES
In the middle of April in southeastern Pennsylvania, and across much of the eastern United States, a yellow haze brightens the understories of many bottomland, deciduous woods. That lovely, golden mist is created by innumerable flowers on native northern spicebushes that stand up to about eight feet tall and dominate many shady, deciduous forest understories on moist soil. Some spicebushes are female and the others are male. After being pollinated by bees, flies and other kinds of small, early insects that sip nectar from those golden flowers, and add more interest to the blossoms, each female bloom grows a green berry that swells through summer and becomes red by September. Multitudes of those attractive berries are strikingly beautiful among spicebushes' green foliage that turns yellow in autumn. During September, flocks of American robins, starlings, cedar waxwings and migrant thru...