In Tribute to Maples
Power of Place in the Appalachian Heartland
By Nancy Stranahan, November 1, 2010
Autumn color is among the most underrated of common miracles. As I write, only a few leaves still tremble on recently bared branches. Over the last week, each frosty morning found considerably more leaves on the ground and less on the trees, but the colors of those that managed to hold fast deepened day by day in richness and intensity, reminding me of the last brilliant glow of a fading sunset whose mounting colors surpass the limit of believability. Today, however, the horizon is undeniably brown, and it is safe to say autumn’s pageant is officially over.
As anticipated, this year’s display was not the showiest in Appalachian history, as the somber hues of our southern Ohio hillsides quietly confirmed. Nevertheless, individual trees in the coves and on the lowlands, where soil moisture persevered in the face of a late summer drought, produced some of the most poignant color performances imaginable.
The glorious colors of autumn, from the early aching pink sumacs of the fencerow to the late bleached tans of canopy-sheltered pawpaws, constitute an extended spectacle that can span six weeks or more. Both in hues and unhurriedness, fall color is quite different from the rushed pastel delicacies of spring flowers. Unsubtle, vibrant, primary, and brash, autumn colors beg self-reflection on what pure color contributes to the experience of being fully human.
Here in southern Ohio, we couldn’t live in a better place to contemplate the matter. Autumn color is unknown in the tropical forests, where seasons are more marked by change in rainfall than by temperature. In the Far North Woods, aspens and tamaracks are a stunning study in shades of gold, offering clean contrasts and simplicity. In the vast oak-hickory woods west of the Appalachian Mountains, falling temperatures evoke somber yellows in the hickories, and stirring shades of royal red and burgundy in the oaks. But none of these forests can “shake a stick” to the autumn colors of the Appalachia heartland. If you live in the foothills or along the central spine of the Appalachian Mountains, you have the honor of bearing witness to some of the most beautiful displays of fall color on the planet.
Photo by Tim Pohlar.
Let’s say you decided to travel across the Northern hemisphere to scan the breadth of the temperate deciduous forest’s full range. If you were to start, say, in Louisville, KY, head eastward over the forested canopy of the Appalachian Mountains, leapfrog across the Atlantic, fly over the fragmented temperate forest woodlots of Europe from London to Moscow, and then, finally, continent-jump to the temperate deciduous forest ‘s remnants near Beijing and Shanghai; you would rediscover what earlier less-worldly European immigrants to North America concluded five hundred years ago: “There is nothing in the world quite like Appalachian fall color.”
Our home forest’s aesthetic secret lies in the lucky distribution of a few special species of trees. To win world acclaim, a region must possess a high density of absolute show stoppers. Such a forest must have trees with nuclear-powered yellows and brilliant killer-reds that seem to have a fire lit within them. Carmine poison ivy vines or orangey-apricot sassafras trees in the fencerow won’t suffice alone. For a region to have first-rate fall color, an expansive continuity of the forest and a roll to the landscape are two necessary features. Great fall color must be presented on glowing hillsides as far as the eye can see.
Major contributions to this collective feat come from just two particularly showy species of trees, both of them maples: Sugar Maple, Acer saccharum and Red Maple, Acer rubrum. Of the two, Sugar Maple weighs in as the champion fall color heavyweight.
Are you familiar with the Norway Maple, a landscape tree popularly planted in Eastern U.S. cities? If you’ve ever seen its listless autumn expression, you will know why the European temperate forest can’t light a candle to our homegrown displays. And the Chinese deciduous trees of Eastern Asia, despite having a collection of its own native maple species as well as memorable fall color, can’t quite compete with the radiance provided by its two American cousins – rubrum and saccharum. If you head out to almost any woods in eastern United States during the last two weeks in October with a camera around your neck, and you allow yourself to be drawn across the landscape purely by the siren call of uncompromising color, chances are you will find yourself focusing your camera lens almost every time on a particularly stunning maple tree. Even if you lack the modest botanical skills required to identify maples, in autumn your eye will pick them out every time; and no two are quite alike.
Fall canopy - Photo by Tim Pohlar.
In the Appalachian heartland, autumn colors progress each year in predictable ways. Trees that were modestly invisible when immersed in the collective green dream of summer, become flamboyantly individualized in autumn. After reflecting nearly the same wavelengths of light as every other tree for five long months, by October the trees “break out” and transform into unique expressions of art. As temperatures continue to fall, the semblance of trees reflecting the sun begins to reverse itself, especially among the maples. Right when autumn is poised on collapse, right when individual trees are standing on the threshold of winter, face to face with the season's demi-death, Red and Sugar Maples explode into radiant chalices of light - looking for all the world as if the trees were no longer illumined by an external sun, but filled with an inner light.
Like trees, humans are dualistic creatures. Like the trees, we are rooted in the materiality of the earthly elements , cause and effect, and realistic limitations, while our crowns – if we open our minds wide enough - are bathed in boundless air and light. Like the trees, we are challenged to walk in two worlds, honoring the wisdom of each, and finding the delicate balance between the two. One world is represented by the extremely conscious realm of material science, survival, measurement, and logic. The other is the fuzzier impractical realm of art and poetry. One is the realm of the ant, who works prudently all summer to save food for the coming cold, counting her steps; the other is the realm of the tree cricket who laughs in the face of certain death. He sculpts his body into a living instrument, devotes his calories to music, and sings to the stars until the frost topples him to the ground, as if he were nothing more than mere compost on a heap of fallen leaves. We need both perspectives - the practical and the inspired - to be brave and whole.
Art reveals vastly different relationships in nature than science, based on different premises of categorizing the world. Science, for instance, would draw no close parallels between fall color, rainbows, and butterfly wings. Poetry, in contrast, boldly connects the dots. Their commonality is thus: that unless trauma in our life has made our hearts as heavy and still as stone, we respond to all three of nature’s seemingly unrelated phenomena with the same brand of joy.
The feeling of walking among autumn's radiant trees, a vortex of floating butterflies, or a rainbow against a dark and brooding April sky, is akin to imagining a film of falling leaves played backwards. We feel expansive, uplifted and renewed when faced with nature’s finest colors. Not because we were taught by others to do so but because our souls recognize – without being told - the inexpressible community among all beautiful things. Our response to this recognition is joy - the universal birthright of being human, whether we be eight years old or eighty.
If you missed the fall colors this year, the regretful reality is that now you'll have to wait an entire year to remedy the situation. But next time you have the chance, immerse yourself in the colors of an Appalachian woods. Wander the woodland trail from the magic light of dawn to the magic light of dusk, and experience what happens to your lightness of being.
Color... Raw, primal, living, undiluted color. We hope you give yourself sufficient time in all the autumns remaining to you, to extract your share of the harvest.