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November 2, 2005
It was a joy to notice on the drive into the office today several of the red colored leaves.
We tend to have a yellow/orange fall. The reds seem more noticeable this year. In fact, just as this past Spring it seemed like the trees all bloomed more or less the same time, it seems this fall that their leaves are turning color close together in time than usual. Anyway, there were the many red tipped red maples. So, it looks like it’s going to be a good year for maple color.
I saw several deep red dogwoods on Elm Street, laden with berries. That’s a good sign for our winter birds. Amidst the tall yellow leaved tulip poplars and hickories I noticed many a red sweet gum, with deep red colored leaves, limbs also heavy with their fruit, those gum balls we love to hate, but which animals love to love.
And perhaps my favorite of the reds, the black gum. I saw two or three of them driving in with thick glossy leaves, dogwood-like in shape, though a bigger tree than a dogwood, with dark little fruits, and a dark alligator bark kind of like dogwood and persimmon. We had a black gum in my front yard growing up mixed in with the dogwoods our near the road. If I close my eyes I can see every limb, and feel the rough black bark. I loved that tree. The black gum remains a favorite tree of mine.
And I think I saw, though one would expect these to have already turned and dropped by now, a sourwood, usually one of the first trees to turn, always with deep read leaves, an under story tree, most always growing in a sweeping tilt almost sideways under the larger forest trees above.
Anyway, enjoy your Greensboro Reds today. Maybe I’ll talk about Greensboro Yellows tomorrow.
Joel Gillespie
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