#246 Snow in June

There's a snowdrift in the circle at the end of the street! 

The circle (for the school bus to turn around) is surrounded by high banks on one side, and trees and brush on the other, so anything light that lands there is trapped, and swirls round and around with the slightest breeze. 

There's a huge old tree on the edge of the circle that I can't identify.  It has smooth grayish bark cut by deep vertical fissures, large heart-shaped leaves, with flattened stems like an aspen, and right now it has clusters of seeds the size and shape of footballs.  The seeds are tiny beige ovals surrounded by the lightest fairy fuzz.  They are released on the breeze, and swirl around in the circle,  forming drifts a foot deep.  It really looks like snow.

My tree books show some trees that might fit the description, but they all have catkin flower heads.  Maybe there are spent catkins inside those fluffy footballs?

Something odd - every year this tree releases "snow" on the first hot days of the early summer.  The past few days have been unusually hot, so here's our snow.  The tree has a sense of humor.

The photo at the top is a leaf from the tree, 6 inches long by 4.5 inches wide, and some seeds.  (The real leaf is green - something went screwy with the scanner.)

~~Silk