In botany, blossom is a term given to the flowers of stone fruit trees (genus Prunus) and of some other plants with a similar appearance that flower profusely for a period of time in spring. Colloquially flowers of orange are referred to as such as well.
Blossoms are either pink or white depending on the species or variety. Peach (including nectarine) blossoms, most cherry blossoms, and some almond blossoms are usually pink. Plum blossoms, apple blossoms, orange blossoms, some cherry blossoms, and most almond blossoms are white.
Blossoms provide pollen to pollinators such as bees, and initiate cross-pollination necessary for the trees to reproduce by producing fruit.
Blossom trees have a tendency to lose their flower petals in wind-blown cascades, often covering the surrounding ground in petals. This attribute tends to distinguish blossom trees from other flowering trees.
Read more about Blossom: Gallery
Famous quotes containing the word blossom:
“how seasonably
leaf and blossom uncurl
and living things arrange their death,
while someone from afar off
blows birthday candles for the world.”
—Irving Layton (b. 1912)
“She saw a dust bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister calxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!”
—Zora Neale Hurston (18911960)
“Earth that bore with joyful ease
Hemlock for Socrates,
Earth that blossomed and was glad
Neath the cross that Christ had,
Shall rejoice and blossom too
When the bullet reaches you.”
—Charles Hamilton Sorley (18951915)