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| Acer platanoides - red on autumn leaves |
I can't expect many people to be interested in this, but it interested
me. These are fallen leaves from Norway Maple (
Acer platanoides). Usually the autumn colours are golden yellow, but occasionally you find a leaf or three with dramatic bright-red splodges, usually towards the edge of the leaf.
If you know what causes this, please get in touch!
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| Acer platanoides - autumn leaf with red colour |
There's bright red on the edges of these sapling leaves, too. It suggests climatic factors, doesn't it? Frostbite on extremities? Wind? But there could easily be another explanation.
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| Red leaf edges on Norway Maple (Acer platanoides). Frome, 3 November 2021. |
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Red leaf edges on Norway Maple (Acer platanoides). Frome, 3 November 2021.
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Red leaf edges on Norway Maple (Acer platanoides). Frome, 3 November 2021.
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Here's the same kind of thing on the extremities of a Silver Maple leaf (
Acer saccharinum):
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| Red leaf extremity on Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum). Frome, 29 October 2021. |
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| Red leaf extremities on Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum). Frome, 29 October 2021. |
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| Silver Maple (Acer saccharinum). Frome, 21 November 2021. |
Labels: Plants
2 Comments:
It’s only a surmise, but could it be that such leaves have been stricken by a pestilence?
I shall call as my only witness Percy Bysshe Shelley, who seemed to know:
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes:
I reckon you looked into my subconscious! My post title must have been partly an unconscious recollection of Shelley.
Yes, very possibly the leaves were pestilence-stricken before they left the tree. They didn't look attacked in any other way though (i.e. blistered or galled). They were smaller-than-average leaves. Alternatively they might have encountered a particular fungus on the ground. Or they could be breaking down a particular chemical such as a hormone.
I'll have to keep an eye out next autumn.
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