A late dose of changing leaf color

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When I was in Great Hills Park two days ago, on January 18th, the cedar sage flowers I found were way out of their normal season. A bit late, but not much, was this leaf of a rattan vine, Berchemia scandens, a species whose leaves normally finish turning yellow and orange here by late December or early January. I saw only a few of these leaves, but I was fortunate to find the little group that this one was a part of in a place where I could take pictures with the sunlight coming from behind the leaf.* In addition, I was taken with the way the leaf was framed between the part of the slender rattan vine it was attached to and another one immediately to its right.

If you’d like to see what a lot of rattan leaves look like when they’re all turning color at the same time, and also to learn more about this vine, you can take a trip back to a post from a year ago.

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* Coincidentally, this location was only about 100 ft. from the spot where I aimed in the same direction and photographed a similar translucence in the dewlap of an anole lizard last year.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman