LLL asked the other day about our Autumn leaf colour in the UK so I thought I would post a few recent pictures taken during my last walk a few days ago. Our walk took us through woods and open fields plus some village roads and the canal, everywhere are the signs of Autumn with many trees dropping their leaves and others starting or already turning brown. Unlike in Canada or the US our trees are mainly Ash, Beech, Oak, Willow, Lime, Horse Chestnut, Sycamore etc. but hardly any of the Maple family. It is mainly the Maple family that turn that lovely Orange or Reddish colour, whereas most of our native species only turn Yellow or Yellowish before turning brown, I believe that the reason for this is the sugar content of the leaves. In Canada and the US where there are lots of Maple varieties and they naturally produce lots of sugar in the leaves during the Summer months then as Autumn (Fall) approaches the trees try to retain as much of this as possible and so start to remove this from their leaves. This also removes the green pigmentation chlorophyll and leaves only the (usually) yellowed colouration that we see during Autumn. The main difference is that our trees in the cooler climates and not being Maples, do not produce as much sugar, therefore it is removed quicker and then the leaves can fall naturally, but if your trees are high sugar content like Maples then you need to slow that leaf dropping process down so that you have a longer time to re-absorb the sugar from the leaves. To do that the Canadian & US Maples will produce a sort of sunscreen (often) in just the top canopy so as to give the leaf more protection while this absorption takes place and that is the Reddish/Orange colours we see prior to their leaves falling.
Trees along the canal
I often stop and chat to friends living along here, often calling across the canal
Passing through the village
A favourite refreshment stopping off point along our walk
and passing under the bridge is a barge loaded with sandstone
Winter Wheat in the open fields, the Bracken has turned brown and signs of colour in the trees
Some way to go yet! Annie always uses the swing gate even though she could go through the gap at the side
I relocated the 'Tinkebell' stone on this old tree stump as no one had found it in the last location, it was found the next day
This is a set of steps by the canal locks that I pass quite often and it has only just dawned upon me that what I always took to be a bit of cement repair work was actually because these very well worn steps of several hundred years of age had actually been turned over at some time in the past!
