Nov 07
How green was my tree
Cats: Canada, beauty|There is a maple tree outside my window. It is green and full of leaves.
On November 7th.
Those green leaves survived a storm the other night. There were gusts of up to 140 kph and many leaves on other trees were taken down by the storm. But not this one.
This green tree has also survived cold nights that have altered the colour of other leaves on other trees. These trees are either naked or half dressed in red, yellow or orange.
But not the tree outside my window. It is fully dressed in green. It refuses to disrobe or change colour like all the other trees on the street.
It will be interesting to see who wins this one: the tree or winter.
November 7th, 2007 at 8:33 am
Your tree seems out of place. The same tree would lose out in a normal forested environment to ‘normal’ maple trees. Your maple is an exotic, or the wrong provenance for your area. The local varieties will have lost their leaves by now. That’s my guess, but genetic variation within a species can stagger the timing of leaf fall.
I say it would lose out in the forest because it hasn’t and likely won’t move valuable nutrients out of it’s leaves into it’s roots for the winter. The trees that do generally will have the advantage everything else being equal.
We have planted red maple here in BC at 51 deg N and they often won’t change colour and lose leaves. Usually by spring the leaves have fallen though.
November 7th, 2007 at 9:00 am
I have a real thing for trees. I used to always sketch them when I was a child. To me there is nothing more beautiful. The leafless silhouette against a winter sky, the full-leaved lush beauties of the summer — I love them and get very attached to the trees in my world.
I love your tree. Brave and defiant.
November 7th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Thanks Dick, that’s why all blogs need a chief forestry correspondent, because when the chips are down, you can always depend on your CFC for the lowdown.
Jacy, I’m a sucker for the leafless silhouette against a dawn or dusk sky too. That tree is indeed brave and defiant. I love it too.
November 7th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
I’ve tagged you for the random-weirdness meme. Are you in?
November 8th, 2007 at 2:20 am
megan, of course.How could I not?
November 8th, 2007 at 8:13 am
I’m sure GT won’t let you down. I hear she is quite capable of ramdom weirdness
P.S. How do you get brave and defiant out of genetically disadvantaged and displaced?
November 8th, 2007 at 11:56 am
I’m rooting for the tree!
November 9th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Deepti me too
Dick remember forrest gump? He was proud and defiant, yet genetically disadvantaged and displaced
November 13th, 2007 at 4:56 am
[...] is a provocative dance taking place outside my window. The tree that refused to turn colour or shed its leaves has decided that today is the [...]
November 14th, 2007 at 9:29 am
No I don’t really remember the movie. Movies emit a type of electro-magnetic field that releases dopamine into my blood and I fall asleep. So I wouldn’t have seen the second half of the movie, and the part I did see would have been under intoxicating levels of dopamine.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.