The leaves of 2011

The leaves of autumn are an extravagant gift nature gives to people who live with four seasons.

Two years ago I noticed three interesting leaves on the ground near my apartment and decided to scan them.

Last year,  the leaves were different but equally beautiful, so I scanned them, too, and wrote about them in a post titled "Arts & Crafts: Color by Nature." Now, two years in, I feel like an amateur scientist documenting the environment. What will the leaves look like this year? How do they correlate to the weather? 2011 has been exceptionally wet, with several record-setting rainfalls. Are the leaves somehow a record of this? Beats me, but they sure are beautiful.

The four leaves below came from adjoining branches of the same tree.

Below, more of this year's bounty.

"Winter is an etching, spring a water color, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all."

~ Stanley Horowitz