Trees blaze red or orange and light up the landscape. Asters grace golden fields with dashes of royal purple. Woodland asters are mostly white, but leaves and goldenrods cast an autumnal glow.



Leaves come down in shimmering displays, or drop noisily when the air is calm. This morning I took the dogs for their wood walk among dancing branches. When we reached the dry creek bed it was a mosaic of yellow and orange leaves instead of bare stones.



Yesterday I was out in the woods wearing the baby in a carrier. I looked up and discovered little yellow streamers adorning a shrub no taller than myself. A witch hazel was blooming, if such a grandiose term could be used for such pale, haphazard flowers. I’ve wanted to see this for two years and now I realized why I’d overlooked them. The leaves they shared branches with were more striking. I had pictured something similar to spring-flowering shrubs, like serviceberry which blooms white against a leafless forest.



The more I looked around, though, the more witch hazel I noticed. The flowers became little treasures which rewarded my closer looks. An understated pleasure in a flamboyant season.