Home again. Leaves again. An oak branch hangs low over the road where I walk with my ya-yas on alternate week-day mornings. We have to duck or swerve to miss it.
We've been exercise-walking together for many years, this group of three ya-yas, so named by one of our daughters after
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. We have six daughters among us. I'm so afraid it's in one of our daughters' destinies to write a book about us. Whoever it turns out to be, may she please wait till we're all dead.
But I digress. More than its hanging in our way, the thing that has attracted me to this branch for at least three years, is that one of its twigs grows large lobeless leaves on a tree otherwise full of deeply lobed bristle-tipped leaves. How can that be?
At first we thought it was a caught branch fallen from another tree. Determining that not to be the case, we accepted it as some anomaly of the season, likely a one-time occurrence. But no, three years later the branch still produces the same oddly rounded leaves it has grown for at least as long as we've been attending it and probably longer. Our tree, by the way, is huge and many generations older than we.
I don't know my oaks, but the broad toothless leaves on the odd branch look to match the leaves of a blackjack oak in the field guides. The branch itself appears to have been damaged---as in possibly broken by a passing truck, then healed. Could that be the reason for the leaves of wonder? I'd be grateful to any tree experts out there who can explain. dkm, aka ya-ya #3
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| Odd branch in September 2011 |
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| Odd branch with Ya-ya Peggy |
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| September 2011 |
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| October 2011, different angle |
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| Two leaves from same tree, November 2011 |
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| Ya-yas Peggy and Pearl |
15 comments:
Here's to the Ya-yas!!! How wonderful to have a walking sisterhood!! I don't know about the leaves although I have a faintish, deeply buried memory of having seen something similar sometime... Despite being broken I have a branch on a peach tree that is still 'growing' - I must have a closer look at it...
I love the last photo :-)
You and my husband love it. The ya-yas hate it. They're lobbying to have it taken off the air. We walk before it gets light, fresh off the pillow. Can you tell? Only by the end of our walk is it light enough for a photo.
Please tell Peggy and Pearl here's why I like it...
It's a happy photo - their smiles make me smile. It really showcases the leaves - in a useful but also humorous way. And it gives me a little more sense of neighbourhood (houses tucked into trees, grassy verges, autumn leaves...).
I love 2 of the Ya Ya's, and am sure I would love the third if I had the chance to know her. And yes, I love the photo.
And I love all o' y'all!
P&P indulged me and my camera with forbearance, did they not? :-)
Astute readers will of course remember Pearl from Chaucer and the Bluebirds.
Hi Debs .. I have sent your photo to a tree specialist here .. see if he can help :o)>
Thanks, PG!
There can be quite a variation in leaf shapes on the same tree, and I have seen very different leaves on the same Oak tree, which can make it hard to identify some trees.
This is Possibly due to the tree being a hybrid of more than one Oak, but it is not unusual for other tree species to have a variety of leaf shapes on them in different parts of the canopy.
Leaves in different sections of bigger trees also photosynthesise using different wavelengths of light due to some being a lot more shaded than others, and to maximise the amount of light available during different times of the day. This may be related to the shape of the leaf, though I am not sure about that.
- the top leaf is an obvious Oak shape, possibly from a Red Oak though there are many different Oaks
That was from John :o)>
Very interesting! Thanks, PG! And please pass my thanks on to your tree guy.
You are welcome .. I have sent your blog to him so he can read what you have written .. it might help a bit more.
Hehe, I like the Yaya sisterhood :D
And that tree really IS odd, whoa.
You could try your luck at Project Noah. Sometimes it produces some great answers.
Best of Luck!
Hi Deb, just checking in to see how you are :)
THanks, Niki. Have been traveling in San Francisco for Big Sur Children's Writing Workshop and meeting with my independent editor. Heady critiques of manuscripts. No time to blog or read others' blogs. Home soon. Back to normal then. Blogposts coming. Saw two endangered California condors at Big Sur! Much more. Thanks for checking. Can't wait to get back to quiet writing life and blogging and meditating again. Will catch up on your updates. Hope to find some of your exquisite poetry when I return home.
I don't really know why this tree produces such leaves, but am always ready with an opinion anyway! Instead of becoming damaged and then producing weird leaves, it seems more likely to me that the whole branch was "born" deformed, and so produces deformed leaves.
But really, I love the fact that you and your friends spend time contemplating it...
I wonder why you cut that tree from the back yard
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