Seeing Red

An unwelcome visitor lay on my lawn this morning: a red leaf. Summer lasts officially until the equinox (September 23 this year) and unofficially (in the US) until Labor Day (September 2 this year). Either way August is solidly summer, the temperature today outside my door is a tad over 80 (that’s 27 by the scale everyone else in the world uses), and red leaves have no place on my lawn. Yet, 18-year-olds already have left for their overpriced colleges while Halloween candy is already appearing on supermarket shelves. The Fall Field Crickets (which look and sound the same as Spring Field Crickets but are different species nonetheless) are chirping loudly. The sun spends less time in the sky each day.

Incidentally, it is a curiosity that red leaves, whether they arrive too early or on time, are more common in the northern states of the US and in Canada than in northern Europe despite similar climates. The natural breakdown of chlorophyll at the end of summer is enough to change leaf hues to yellow or orange (colors that dominate in Europe in the autumn), but turning a leaf red requires the active synthesizing of anthocyanins. Why would a plant bother making the extra effort? One suggestion (by Yev-Ladun, S. and J.K. Holopainen in New Phytologist 2009) is that there is a different mix of aphids and other pests on each continent due to their different geological and evolutionary histories. Red warns off more of the particular pests in North America in the same way that bright colors on insects, amphibians, and reptiles often warn predators that they are poisonous. It’s an evolutionary adaptation.

As that may be, I’m not ready yet to see those reds. Some people talk to their plants. (Do they find it harder to be vegetarians?) Perhaps I should give my trees a stern talk on the need to stay green at least until September 23. I doubt it would help but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt either.

Another harbinger of autumn is relatively recent – in fact, it’s the reverse of when I was a schoolboy. Kids reappear. Back in the ancient days of my youth unattended school-age kids were everywhere during the summer vacation months: on bicycles, in yards, in the shopping center, in the parks, on sidewalks…everywhere. I was one of them. Nowadays they vanish for the summer. They have to be somewhere. I suppose they are either inside or at organized activities (on soccer fields, for instance) that as a non-parent I simply don’t see. In early September, however, they appear at the curbside in the mornings waiting for school buses and again in the afternoons when they return. On my neighborhood cul-de-sac street there appear to be about 30. In August, however, they are nowhere to be seen. For much the same reasons, I’m in no more hurry to see them at the curbside than red leaves in trees.

So, I’ll laze in late summer while I can. (There is a metaphor about stage of life in there somewhere.) The jack-o-lanterns can wait.

The Orwells – Last Days in August