Late color
Chestnut oak, LH
Most of the spectacular color display has now vanished, the maple and birch leaves going to ground and slowly starting to be turned back into fertilizer. But the foliage show is hardly over. There's color, albeit soft and subtle, in the oaks, as this discovery on a highland hike shows. These Chestnut Oaks are tending towards a slow-burn yellow, their leaf veins still green as chlorophyll is broken down and sent back into storage in the roots. Soon enough, the scallop-edged foliage will be ready to call it a growing year and become part of the leaf litter, food for worms, leaf-chomping insects, and bacteria.
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© Bruce Fellman