The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Rain, sun, wind...insects, birds, flowers...meteorites, rocks...seasonal changes...all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
October 2014
Salish Sea, PNW
Clinging tenaciously to dry rocky bluffs, madrona trees settle into the autumn season with a flamboyant display of color. It's quite unlike the leafy shades of red that briefly decorate deciduous forests before those trees drop their foliage and subside into the colorless dormancy of winter. The bright colors of madronas come from their bark, varying and persisting throughout year, renewed each autumn by a thin outer layer falling away.
More fall color of the Northwest below...
(All photos by me. In Lightbox...click to enlarge)
Arbutus menziesii is a lovely iconic tree that stands out in the coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest, remarkable in many ways. In contrast to the telephone-pole-straight trunks typical of conifers, it grows in randomly beautiful curvaceous forms which makes each tree unique. It flourishes on rock with minimal soil and its large glossy broadleaf foliage is evergreen. Its wood and flowers and fruits are special too.
Today let's take a look at its bark, which is extremely thin and exfoliates every year. Shedding starts in summer and by the time the fall rains start, large sheets are loosening and falling away on every living surface.
Small branches...
as well as limbs and trunks.
The ground below is littered with curling shreds of cinnamon-red papery bark.
Once the current season's layer has fallen, the fresh layer beneath is revealed: smooth and variously pigmented in soft but intense shades and patterns. It's a sensual pleasure to run your hands along these silken-textured trees. They have a coolness too, even on hot days, I think because you can feel the groundwater climbing up the cambium layer right through the paper-thin bark.
I love all madrona trees. This one in my nearby bay is particularly tall and has beautiful vertical streaks of merging color that are appearing as it sheds.
Can you tell where those sections are in the whole tree?
I can gaze on this tree and its neighbors all afternoon, floating around in my kayak, even on its reflection in the water, its curves resonating in the ripply surface of the bay.
Another sign of the autumn season here in the Pacific Northwest. What's happening now in your part of the world?
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