I would tell you to get out and smell the tulips before their time is past, but tulips don't really have a smell.  They are lovely, though.  And they're really poppin'!

In the Public Garden, of course...


...and in the Fenway Victory Gardens...


I have to admit I'm not emotionally as involved with tulips as I am with some other more frivolous flowers, but, like the Dutch, who've so taken to them (they're actually indigenous to the Middle East and Central Asia), they have an admirable economy and an appealing pragmatism.  

I was riding through the little corridor that runs between Back Bay Station and Mass Ave., and the crab apple trees are bursting with blossoms...

And they're so fragrant.  When I was growing up we used to have a huge crab apple tree in our side yard.  So when I smell that wonderful smell, it takes me right back to those happy days as a wee scamp, climbing trees on a summer day, launching crab apples at my siblings with my trusty slingshot, and spending the rest of the day hiding out under the evergreens, afraid for my life.  Ah, childhood!  Still, the fragrance is intoxicating. 

Here are a couple of dogwoods on their way in...