My Wordless Sunday # 14 - in Charleston, SC

Springtime Flowers

One of the last blooming Azaleas

Shasta Daisy flowers are blooming wild in the grass

I'm not sure if these are Jasmin flowers - but for sure, I remember the very sweet smell

New green leaves on the old Oak tree full with Spanish Moss hanging

This Azalea bush was the only one still full with flowers

Tree Huggers are Welcome

Watch the clouds :-)

And there is also a sign: Caution Alligators - not just one!

One of those beautiful trees

Pretty nature scene view over the Marsh

Spring is definitely here. Did you hug a tree today? :-)

My Wordless Sunday #6 - in Charleston

Spanish Moss #2

I just LOVE these trees with Spanish moss on their limbs

The Angel Oak

The Angel Oak is thought to be one of the oldest living things east of the Mississippi River.

Towering over 65 feet high, the Angel Oak has shaded John's Island, South Carolina, for over 1400 years, and would have sprouted 1000 years before Columbus' arrival in the New World. Recorded history traces the ownership of the live oak and surrounding land, back to the year 1717 when Abraham Waight received it as part of a small land grant. The tree stayed in the Waight family for four generations, and was part of a Marriage Settlement to Justus Angel and Martha Waight Tucker Angel. In modern times, the Angel Oak has become the focal point of a public park. Today the live oak has a diameter of spread reaching 160 feet, a circumference of nearly 25 feet, and covers 17,100 square feet of ground. www.historictrees.org

Acorns from the Angel Oak have grown to produce authentic direct-offspring trees. Live oaks generally grow out and not up, but the Angel Oak has had plenty of time to do both. Its limbs, the size of tree trunks themselves, are so large and heavy that some of them rest on the ground (some even drop underground for a few feet and then come back up), a feature common to only the very oldest live oaks.

It has survived countless hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and human interference, so there's a good chance it will still be there waiting for you. There is no admission charge.