Tree Fairies - May, the Narrow-Leaf Cottonwood Fairy coloring page

 

Tree Fairies - May the Narrow-Leaf Cottonwood Fairy

Mae is a Narrow-Leaf Cottonwood Fairy.  She is a very young Fairy.  She would be in Elementary School if she was a mortal.  Of course, she IS in the Fairy world version of Elementary School.  May is a particularly bright Fairy.  She already servers shifts caring for the forest.  She lives in Utah, USA, and she has bonded with Narrow-Leaf Cottonwood trees.  

Narrow-Leaf Cottonwood Trees are not as well known to mortals as they should be.  Many of the cottonwoods in riparian areas are Narrow-Leaf Cottonwoods.  From a distance, they look a lot like the regular Fremont Cottonwoods that grow here.  But Narrow-Leaf Cottonwoods have leaves that are much more narrow.  They are long pinnate leaves.  The leaves on a Fremont Cottonwood are more heart-shaped with a wavy serrations.  In contrast, the Narrow-Leaf Cottonwood has tiny serrations and the leaves are much like a willow, however, Narrow-Leaf Cottonwood leaves are much wider and generally much longer than willow leaves.  Because both willows and Narrow-Leaf Cottonwoods grow in riparian areas, they are sometimes mistaken for the other species.  

By the way, "riparian plants" are plants that grow along rivers and waterways. 

The species name for Narrow-Leaf Cottonwood is angustifolia.  The full scientific name is 

Populus angustifolia.  The Fremont cottonwood is Popullus fremontii.  

NOTE:  This drawing, in printable form, can be found by clicking on the top button that says "Fantasy, Myths, and Circus."  Then scroll down to the bottom of the list for the new drawing.  OR if you can copy the drawing posted on this blog page and paste it into another program and THEN print it... you will probably get a better copy.  The printable pages are PDF files and they are not as good of quality as PNG files on this main part of the blog.