With the warmer nights, until recently, my early turning maple trees didn’t have as brilliant colors as they normally do in the autumn. But now that the nights are colder, the oaks are displaying some bright red colors which catch your eyes in the woods.
Displaying Red
The ‘Mighty Oak’ is still trying to hang unto autumn even though winter started early this year. The winter winds might have broken the branch off, but the oak leaves give a hint of color on the white forest floor.
Leaves from the Mighty Oak
I rather listen to the leaves rustling in the breeze than the rattle of icy branches covered in ice and seeing the duller colors of oak leaves is still more colorful than the snowy limbs.
Autumn Rustle
The oak leaves were white again this morning but this time it wasn’t frost making them white but instead they were covered with snow, even the leaves still on the trees.
Winter Begins
The ‘leaf peepers’ are normally out when the maples are red, orange and yellow and the later turning oaks are often ignored, especially since many oaks just turn to a brown color but some oaks show some color too. Here two different varieties of oak are leading in from opposite sides of the narrow path.
And since I was looking at the leaves and not the tree, I am not totally for sure on the varieties, but from the leaves, it appears to be a white oak and a red oak, even though the white oak that is more red at the moment.
As a kid learning about trees in 4-H, there was a little saying to help remember the white from the red oaks. Since the Native Americans used arrows, the red oak leaves were pointy and the white colonists used round bullets, so the white oak had round ends. So I wonder if these two oaks reaching in are making peace or war, but whatever the case may be, I will enjoy the display of colors.
Joining Oaks
Well one might think of colored leaves in the fall, but the spring can provide a range of color too; from the red buds, the light green leaves to the red color of new oak leaves.
Springtime Red Leaves
The reds, orange and yellows of the maple trees are gone but the oaks are still providing some fall color, even if many of the oaks have a more brownish color. But some oaks have a bright red color too and often mixed in with green right next to the reds. Although many of those pretty oaks leaves took flight over night and are now covering my lawn.
Red-colored Oak Leaves
