Reliving the fall

the big oak

Just like that, it’s over. After all the breathless anticipation and hype, all the bluejay jeers and scolding squirrels, it’s hard to believe how quickly the moment passes and the ground is littered with the fallen. I speak, of course, of the autumn foliage, which in many parts of the northern hemisphere reaches its peak of color sometime in October. In no other month do so many people focus on trees, and if you want to relive it, there’s no better way than to peruse the links in the latest edition of the Festival of the Trees — which was hosted this time not by a northern blog at all, but by one based in Bangalore, India: Trees, Plants and more. Week by week, Arati chronicles her harvest of tree-related entries from around the world.

spotted oak leaf

It seems odd to feel nostalgic for just last month, but such is the situation for fall foliage-lovers, as well as (one suspects) the U.S. Democratic Party faithful. Remember that apparently sturdy young oak beside the trail whose every leaf was stippled with gray dots? Remember how the quaking aspens were a shimmer of gold before last weekend’s big winds? Remember how the powerline right-of-way lit up when the huckleberry all turned red?

huckleberry foliage

2 Replies to “Reliving the fall”

    1. Glad you liked. Yeah, actually huckleberries and blueberries grow throughout the heath-oak forest type in the Appalachians, with huckleberries generally preferring the openings and blueberry bushes of roughly the same height providing a ground cover in the woods.

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