Sep 28: Red Tufts on a maple, high in Vershire

Oct 11: (Same tree) Add yellow and orange

Above: Now don't you suppose that the darkly pigmented tufts would correspond to an early breath of cold?  I think they do, which means there's red or purple or brown - something dark, that will be caught in the leaves when the tree cuts them off. The later developments are lighter colors, I presume, as comprised of fewer, and less pigmenting chemicals. Above, with both the early red and the later yellow and orange, the leaves strike me as very deeply pigmented. 
September Photos 
Oct 11: Photographing a hillside above 2000 feet and at a distance.  Yellows have come out.  This is the place where the "horse picture" was taken (high up, in the back of the area). Some flaming orange in front, too. 

 
From the same place, the sun catches the new yellows that have arisen. 

 
This is (roughly) where there were pink-salmon leaves 2 weeks earlier.

 
Here's another picture from the same place where I first found a purple tree (last picture on previous page).  I believe that the rose'-colored tree from Sep. 28th is the pink one below (just behind and to the left of the spruce). 

And where is all this lavender coming from?  I think this must be where the earliest chemicals normally withdrawn from the leaves have been trapped (by an early cold snap).  Once the chemicals are trapped in the leaves, they stay there.  With purples, the tree is done entertaining the leaf at a time when, it would appear, all or most of the original plant chemicals are still in the leaves.  Of course, I'm guessing. 


Wide shot...  On sep. 28th,, the purple one was left of the tall slim conifer. I don't know where it is now.

 
Here's a switch: I went up high, and realized the beech leaves were yellow and brown.  All the leaves here are beech, and so I am guessing that the brown ones are the ones that looked like fall foliage to me on Sep. 28th. Either that, or it was the yellow ones! 

 
Below: The one purple tree I could find (this time).  Like the pictures at the top of this page, these trees are on the edge of a field, above 2000 feet in Vershire.  This time, however, there is a little orange, red and yellow to boot...

Cheers - 
Mark