Mississippi and Falling Leaves
November 20, 1997
“The falling leaves drift by my window, the autumn leaves of red and gold....” And the leaves keep falling and falling and falling - for about two months leaves have been falling. Sometimes we can hear them hit the roof of Serendipity and wonder if it is raining. Here at the Great River Road State Park north of Greenville, MS, the leaves are sometimes ankle deep under the sycamore, cottonwood, white ash, mulberry, and sugarberry trees. We are still able to enjoy the childlike joy of walking through the dry leaves and hearing them crunch under our feet. Copperhead snakes are well camouflaged in these leaves that also cover the park trails. Wouldn’t want to injure one by stepping on it. Falling leaves are one of the unexpected pleasures of following the fall colors down the Mississippi River. Never in our lives have we experienced continued leaf fall for such an extended period of time.
The overnight temperature that dropped to the mid-twenties in an RV park in West Memphis, AR apparently sped up the development of the abscission zone in the leaf stems. A flock of robins, active in the early morning sunshine, triggered heavy showers of these leaves.
During windy days, leaves blow almost horizontally from the trees, but this morning the air is still and the leaves are falling slowly, one by one. Infrequent breezes trigger small showers of leaves of many assorted sizes and shapes. The path of the breeze can be followed across this large park as indicated by the leaf fall moving from one tree to another. Like the movement of the shadow of a small cloud across the terrain, the leaf fall moves across the park. Sometimes leaves swirl down like falling helicopters. The larger leaves of the sycamore sometimes drop slowly - buoyed by the air like a parachute. But mostly they simply fall, with only minor side movements, straight to the ground with minimum display and ceremony. From the Canadian border down through Missouri and Tennessee, the various maples carpeted the ground with bright patches of red, yellow, and peach colors on the lawns of RV parks. Then somewhere about Kentucky, the sweet gum leaves added their own bright red colors to the litter. But here in Mississippi the colors are more subdued and range from slightly orange to tan and brown.
My fascination with falling leaves is more than the romantic notions associated with leaf fall as symbolic of human senescence. For me, leaf fall is also symbolic of life. Imagine all the hungry earthworms that now are provided with the organic matter for their dinner tables. Fungi and assorted other critters will help break down this cornucopia of fibrous stuff so that minerals are released, making them available to the tree. What an interesting cycle these minerals experience. Earthworms eat the decaying leaves and minerals are released in the frass where they are available to the roots of the trees. In the spring, when the sap in the trees starts to flow, the minerals are transported through the roots, up the trunk, out the limbs, and into the leaves. Then the cycle can start all over. Not unlike the cycle of humans who travel south from Minnesota in the fall to overwinter in Florida and travel back to Minnesota in the spring.
Is there a down-side to falling leaves? Well, sort of! To defend themselves against the hoards of insects that would eat the leaves, the trees have evolved mechanisms of defense. Tannins, which are toxic to insects, build up in the leaves as they age. When these leaves fall into the stagnant or slowly moving water, the tannins are leached out of the leaves and color the water. Streams flowing out of forests often contain dark, tannin-rich water. These same tannins also do a job on the roof of Serendipity. This morning when I climbed up on the roof, it was littered with lots of sugarberry leaves that were stuck to the morning dew. Upon lifting the leaves, a dark tannin stain remained on the white roof wherever a leaf had been. Oh well! It is really a small price to pay for the joy of watching the autumn leaves drift by my window.
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