Autumn in the south, or rather the deep south, doesn’t really start showing its true colors until November. We get tinges of it in September but usually at that point it is because of summer drought stress in the trees and the leaves begin going golden. October get a bit more of a pronouncement, especially if we get a cool front in the month, or like this year an early freeze at the end of the month. By November the colors start coming in and definitely by late Thanksgiving we’ve gone to what most people would consider ‘brown’. But if you look right, and especially if you get a rainy…

The winged elms, Ulmus alata, at Cooper Lake State Park back during our Thanksgiving camping trip were some of the wingiest winged elms I’ve ever seen! It was very tempting to want to break the little corky wings off but I resisted and just took in the interesting patterns of the wings and the coloration that the chilly, grey November day was giving to the wood. As you can see many of the wings were covered in lichen or moss, too, which made them even more interesting to view. I’ve tried finding more information about how the wings are developed in this plant but so many of the science articles…