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Tt: Re: When the leaves fall ...

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 From: "Mark Stephens" <marks@entekird.com>
 To: "Community_Forestry" <Treetown@Majordomo.Flora.Com>
 Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 07:53:25 -0400
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 Hi Richard and all,

Don't forget about foiliar flagging.  Some trees, with a seed that needs
transportation, color leaves to attract birds.  Dogwoods and Tupelo come
to mind.  I have seen this theory in at least 3 different books.  Fact
or fiction?  This does not explain why Sugar Maple is so spectacular.

Why leaves fall at different times? Cultivars come from all over the US
and Canada.  I would _guess_ they are on their own schedule.  Let's say
we have a Red Maple cultivar from Canada.  When the daylength is 12
hours cold weather is just around the corner so the leaves fall.  Not so
for a cultivar from a more southerly location.  Of course this assumes
that the tree responds to day length, or actually night length, only.
Maybe it doesn't really make that much difference.  The same species
growing in the same area can lose leaves at different times.  Genetics?
Sort of like loosing your hair, or going grey early like me :-)

I think our fall (SW Ohio) has been extended by lack of rain.  Many
trees colored up last week and dropped.  Still more are going now.  The
White Ash seemed to be hardest hit by our drought.

How is the fall planting season around TreeTown.  Our dirt is like
cement due to the lack of rain.  I managed to get 1 Sassafras planted.
A jackhammer would come in handy.  I still have about 10 trees that I
would like to plant before winter.  But I'm whining now...

---

Mark Stephens - Cincinnati, OH z5
http://w3.one.net/~markws Our Backyard Forest



-----Original Message-----
From: RT Ellsberry <rtells@Flora.Com>
To: Community Forestry <Treetown@Majordomo.Flora.Com>
Cc: Michael Laurenson <EmElle@HarbourMoon.Ca>
Date: Tuesday, October 14, 1997 12:32 AM
Subject: Tt: When the leaves fall ...


> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
> Dear Treetown Gurus -
>
> One of our colleagues has posed an intriguing question which
> is being forwarded along for your comment.  But first this
> digression: Fall color is itself a beautiful and complex bio-
> chemical phenomenon, made all the more fascinating when one
> concludes that foliage color probably provides no knowable
> evolutionary advantage for a tree -- that it's simply a lucky
> (for us) side-effect of other processes ... or is it ?
>
> But our question is this: In Baltimore we are enjoying a longer
> and pleasanter autumn this year.  Around here, some of the trees
> have lost all of their leaves already whilst others haven't even
> begun to change yet.  So why is this?  My intuitive reaction
> is that many of those trees are more southerly, like some mag-
> nolias and the crape-myrtles, while others are native farther
> north, like the northern oak species and the (European) beeches.
> So if this is the case, then which is which?  Would a northern
> species drop its leaves earlier, because it is accustomed to an
> earlier winter, or would a northern species actually wait longer,
> holding out for colder climatic triggers which will arrive later
> in this region than they would in say New England?  Or is mine
> in fact not the correct rationale at all -- it may sound logical
> to me, but I cannot figure out which outcome would be predicted ...
>
> RT Ellsberry
> Treetown ListOp
> Richard@Flora.Com
> www.flora.com
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>
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