I went for a brief walk in the Arboretum today. After a couple of nights where the temperature had dropped below freezing, this afternoon was bright and sunny, hitting 60 degrees. A breeze over the meadow carried with it countless cottony seeds.
Despite the freezes, swarms of midges hovered over the streams and flies rested on the bark of a silver maple. I even saw a dragonfly madly hunting.
We are past peak fall color. A winterberry shrub (Ilex verticillata) stubbornly clung to green just as it will hold onto those red berries all winter.
A fothergilla shrub (Fothergilla major), on the other hand, has gone deep red.
A ginkgo tree has given up, a yellow blanket around its base.
