I had several comments on my Facebook page about how to caption the tree photo I posted here a couple of days ago. If I was guessing what was going on, I might have said, “Tree Hugging 101 class”. Here are captions from Facebook:

• “Black Legged Sap Sucker – very rare, and that’s for sure”.
• Lady sniffing tree. “Yes Harry, this is the tree that farted”
• “Stand back, hide behind a tree and maybe the grizzly bear and the black legged sap sucker won’t notice us”.
• “My first boyfriend wrote our initials on one of these trees”.

The thing that was really happening in the photo was that a volunteer naturalist at the High Desert Museum was leading a walk and he had people smelling the Ponderosa pine’s bark. It has a sweet cinnamon-like smell.

Here’s a link to an article that talks more about the tree and its unique scent. Ponderosa pines sweet smell.