When I was younger, I liked the orange and red autumn leaves best. Now that I'm old (and wiser, I hope), I've come to appreciate the yellows and browns. One of my favorite trees is the beech--very common in the dry woodlands where I live. The bark is a smooth silvery grey, and the branches dip gracefully toward the ground. The leaves are, at all times, of a beautiful color. Almost a fluorescent green in spring, deep delicious green in summer, and fading from bronze to gold to champagne in autumn and winter. A few persist all the way into spring! And--there are beechnuts, too!
