Texas red oak, too
Click for greater clarity.
In the same place at the edge of a road in my neighborhood where I photographed the lone Virginia creeper leaf you saw the other day, I found this Texas red oak, Quercus buckleyi, turning similarly warm and bright colors. For whatever reason, the groundskeepers for the adjacent apartments have left this little embankment mostly alone, so I’ve been able to take pictures here year after year. Let’s hope the benign neglect continues.
To take this photograph I crouched down and aimed mostly upwards. (Because there was a grape vine between the red oak and me, it’s necessarily included here.) While we’re talking about photographic craft, I’ll add that points 3 and 12 in About My Techniques are relevant to this photograph.
© 2012 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
Outstanding red color of the red oak. It is a good tree. Another one that the squirrels plant in my yard. I have left some that came up and the young tress have better fall color than my old tree. Strange but there is probably an answer.
petspeopleandlife
December 18, 2012 at 8:35 AM
I’ve seen good color even in saplings of red oaks that barely rose above the forest floor. Maybe they’re excited to be alive.
Steve Schwartzman
December 18, 2012 at 9:01 AM
Your lovely photographs of fall foliage are extending my enjoyment of the season this year. Thank you, Steve!
~Lynda
pixilated2
December 18, 2012 at 10:41 AM
You’re quite welcome, Lynda. Just as the seasons lag the sun, my fall color pictures are lagging the fall color, most—but not all—of which is gone now. It lives on in memory, and of course where I’m concerned, in photographs as well.
Steve Schwartzman
December 18, 2012 at 1:05 PM
What a marvelous foliage, thank you very much for this picture.
chatou11
December 18, 2012 at 1:13 PM
You’re welcome. The red oaks and the flameleaf sumacs provide the best autumn leaf color we have in Austin.
Steve Schwartzman
December 18, 2012 at 2:04 PM
Isn’t that color luscious? It’s one of the few trees that can match a good Lost Maples show. I first saw them over toward Concan & Uvalde. They mix in along the Frio and Sabinal – from what I’ve read, they like limestone ridges and creek bottoms, and you’ve got plenty of both.
shoreacres
December 19, 2012 at 7:56 AM
Luscious is a good description. This edge of the Hill Country supports its share of these oaks. About four years ago we had a particularly good fall for them, and you could see the red oaks standing out here and there in the hills along Loop 360.
Steve Schwartzman
December 19, 2012 at 8:57 AM