Every year we get to see a color show as deciduous trees bed down for the winter. What is less often noticed is that there is a sort of method to the madness. Certain trees have different colors. More surprising, they shed in different ways.
Below: This Aspen picture was not taken in the Garden or even in Wirth Park, but it shows the Poplar sequence beautifully.
Below: And, finally, there’s the “You can’t make me” version, in which leaves stay on the tree as long as possible, produce brown tannin pigments and fall off according to no particular pattern. Behold the Oak (and the Beech of eastern forests).