cutting-edge fruits

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American hornbeam, a.k.a. ironwood (Carpinus caroliniana)

American hornbeam, usually called ironwood in my part of the world—is a fairly common understory tree found mostly along streambanks. 

At this time of the year, it's in fruit: clusters of involucres, hanging from the ends of leafy branches. You'd hardly notice them, they're green and dangle below the branches like Japanese lanterns.

Swedish halberd

The curious word here is involucre, from the Latin involūcrum meaning cover or covering and each involucre  does slightly enclose a small oval nut. 

The involucres are short stalked, usually three-lobed like a leaf; halberd-shaped, coarsely serrated on one margin or entire. Another curious word: halberd, meaning a 16th century shafted weapon with an ax-like cutting blade. Think Conan the Barbarian, or better still, French duke Charles the Bold and the Burgundian Wars, which ended quickly when a Swiss peasant lopped off Charles' head during the Battle of Nancy (not the battle for "Nancy," that's a different story) on 5 January 1477.  

So the fruit of a hornbeam tree is like a green stack of primitive serrated ax-like cutting weapons protecting a small cluster of nutlets. 

Isn't scientific nomenclature fun!

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