10/13/11 MORE FALL COLOR, AND A DANGEROUS RETRO VIRUS

RED OAK LEAVES ARE MOSTLY BRONZE AND BROWN THIS FALL

...EXCEPT FOR LEAVES OF YOUNG TREES

HAZELNUT LEAVES ARE YELLOW TINGED WITH GREEN

JUNEBERRY LEAVES ARE A RUSTY YELLOW

LILAC LEAVES REMAIN GREEN

...AS DO THOSE OF THIS MULBERRY

Thursday, 8:00 AM.  52 degrees.  Wind WSW, calm.  It is raining quite hard and it has rained off and on all night.  The barometer predicts more.
    Northern red oak, Quercus borealis, (the beech family, Fagaceae) leaves are mostly turning bronze and brown this year, the typical blood red of their leaves reserved mostly for seedling and very young trees.
    Juneberries, the common name of several native Amelanchier species; the rose family), have a muted but attractive yellow-rust fall leaf color.
    The beaked hazelnut, Corylus cornuta (the hazelnut family, Corylaceae) , leaves are now yellow tinged with green.
    The very old, large lilac (Syringa species) planting across the street still has green leaves, emphasized by the red leaves of the invading sumacs.  Most, but not all, deciduous leaves that remain green at this point are of European origin or are native much further south in North America. 
    The adjacent mulberry tree (mulberry family, Moraceae) with its green leaves is perhaps a hybrid between the native red mulberry and the European white mulberry, I am not sure.  Watch for large green-leaved shrubs in the woods understory or woods edges now, hereabouts they tend to be the very invasive buckthorns ( two species of Rhamnus)
    As I intimated yesterday, the “Occupy Wallstreet” movement, now spread to major cities throughout the country, looks to me like a throwback to the mindlessness of the ‘60’s, sans any constructive agendas or potential solutions whatsoever.  I haven’t heard much about an “Occupy Madison” ( the Wisconsin state capital) movement, I assume since it, along with the University and major governmental departments, has been “occupied” pretty much as long as anyone can remember, regardless of which party is in power at any given time. 
    Once entrenched, these “occupations” can last for generations and cause enormous societal and economic damage, particularly when their precepts are inculcated in the young and gullible by an untouchable, tenured professorial staff. These "occupations"  are analogous to a retro virus that lies dormant after its initial attack, and erupts in a different and more virulent form at some later time.