If the tree in question were a deciduous, Northern Hemisphere species, its autumn leaves would be the “right” colour, but otherwise all “wrong”.
These autumn leaves are young and growing, not old and preparing to fall.
They will soon change colour – from red to green, not vice versa.
(photo is copyright Doug Spencer, taken at 5.19 pm on 29 March 2020)
Typically, in Perth, late March is likely to provide a more generous dose of yet more “summery” weather than the now longed-for “autumnal” kind.
Most of the exotic street trees – deciduous species, native to the Northern Hemisphere – are still verdant, yet to receive any cues to prepare for winter.
There is a deal of “autumnal” colour, however, courtesy of native Australian “evergreens”!
Most Eucalypts’ new, young leaves are very unlike their mature ones; often, colour, texture and shape are entirely different, as is the leaves’ orientation in relation to the sun.
Consider how vulnerable is a young leaf in the first quarter of the year, here…solar radiation is prodigiously high, skies are mostly unclouded, it almost never rains, and the nigh-incessant winds are dessicating. (Perth is one of the world’s windiest substantial cities)
So, it is a good strategy for a very young leaf to accumulate anthocyanins.
Primarily responsible for the young leaves’ redness, anthocyanins are believed to help reduce the damage otherwise wreaked by solar radiation.
They may also have a role in “fooling” insects which would otherwise devour the tender young leaves.
Anthocyanins also offer benefits to humans who consume the many different plants that contain them.
Discover more here.
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Today’s music is a superb October 2014 “live” performance of a piece you almost certainly have not already heard.
It is a beautiful, wordless evocation of autumn, as experienced in places where October is an autumn month.
Czech-American composer, piano virtuoso and educator Thomas Svoboda (born 1399) wrote Autumn in 1982-83.
For more than a few years he has lived in Oregon, as has Tokyo-born koto virtuoso Mitsuki Dazai: