"Hey, come look! The leaves are out! Oh ... too late ... you missed it ..."Well, OK, maybe fall color isn't quite that fleeting in Florida but it is relatively short-lived. We don't attract the 'leaf hoppers' like New England or Appalachia (Florida tourists are looking for Mice, palms, and shells) but the colors of late November provide a nice change from our normal uniformly evergreen landscape.
While driving through north Florida and the West Florida Republic after Thanksgiving, all the right conditions seemed to have come together this particular weekend to produce some spectacular scenery. As I descended a long downhill straightaway, bright sun ignited the golden mid-story of cherry, sweetgum, and grapevine. Suddenly WOW! a single maple popped out along the edge showing off a gradient of colors from sunny navel orange through shocking fiery fuchsia.Here's a question for the botanists: Why do some species only make a certain color (hickory, elm, ash, cypress, crape myrtle) while others (maple, sweetgum) show off like a rainbow?
Now, in December, more colors of the season are showing in the form of berries: holly, dogwood, Indian hawthorn, nandina. Do any wildlife eat this stuff? Our neighborhood squirrels have obviously been spoiled by the urban welfare of bird feeders. Witness my driveway: an orange mess of mashed laurel oak acorns. You'd think that a pre-cracked ready-to-eat meal would attract tree rats like a soup kitchen but better and even easier pickin's must lie elsewhere ...Organics fade but inorganics light up the neighborhood shrubbery as another form of seasonal color takes over for a month or two. Hopefully these excited electrons will remind you of the excitement shepherds shared with angels one starlit night two millennia past when mankind's Savior was born.
Merry Christmas!
