Autumn and The Annoying Tree

Fall foliage, or what passes for it here, is arriving at the Boggy Thicket.  Sweet Gums and elms are just beginning to turn, and some of the Oaks are already dropping leaves by the truck-load.

By far, the most colorful leaves are on what I call “that damn tree.”  I call it that because, although I was a Boy Scout and have lived in Southeast Texas for over 70 years, I have no idea what kind of tree it is. 

I have consulted the internet – based on Texas A&Ms Trees of Texas website, I suspect it is some kind of Ash, but none of the photos or descriptions are an exact match.

In Autumn, leaves go from green to yellow, to orange, to scarlet.  By the time they fall, they are often a luminous garnet with a pattern of black spots.

We have several of those “damn trees” on our property, and they are among the ugliest trees on the place.  They get big – the one in the picture above is well over 60 feet tall.  Unlike most trees, where even the horizontal limbs start growing from the trunk at an upward angle, about a third of the limbs on these trees start out pointed down.

We had a small one – about 18 feet tall - in the front yard that I liked a little bit.  I thought it looked sort of oriental, like a tree you might find painted on a Chinese screen.  Honey thought it was the least attractive tree she had ever seen, so eventually, I cut it down.

Speaking of unattractive, I’ve never noticed fruit on the big trees, but that little one bore tiny, round, blue-black fruit each year.  I don’t know what they tasted like, but they must have been pretty bad – none of the birds or squirrels would touch  them.