October Submissions: Leaves

~ melaniereynolds

Welcome to the first day of November! I hope you all have a lovely Halloween. I sheperded teenage boys through our dark, dark streets in search of the much-desired candy loot. I could tell you it’s enough to last until Christmas, but you know it will not. Not in this house. There is no frugality when it comes to sweet treats here!

Please enjoy these delightful and varied leaves. A surprising entrant made a strong and diverse appearance that I was not expecting! The Croton (Codiaeum variegatum)! Not to be confused with the salad accessory known as croutons. This diverse plant is from the spurge family and enjoys a warm, moist climate with dappled light.

These first two pictures (above and below) are from the same Croton plant! By Dinahmow, https://moreidlethoughts.wordpress.com/

This one looks like a Toucan bird.

This collection of three is also provided by Dinah Mow. I like to think she had a fun fashion shoot with her Croton plants. https://moreidlethoughts.wordpress.com/

New growth and some “spoons”

Dinah can correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe all the above Crotons have Australian accents as they reside in Australia.

Not to be outdone though, we’ve got this Croton beauty from Southern Florida, thanks to Lisa Troute!

Croton Leaves, no two alike.  Florida, USA Lisa Troute

Continuing up the East Coast of the United States, Welcome to New York! Where Kerfe Roig gives us a quick walk through the leaves of Central Park.

Leaves of Central Park, NY, Kerfe Roig, https://methodtwomadness.wordpress.com/

I recognize oak, sycamore, and one green aspen leaf on the right, but what is the red one below it?

Now we head to Colorado, USA.

Tracy says: We were hiking to Eaglesmere Lake and it was slow-going as I kept stopping to photograph leaves that looked bejeweled by raindrops. We ended up missing our turn and didn’t make it to the lake that day, but it was a glorious hike. 

Aspen leaves on trail to Eaglemeres Lakes, White River National Forest, Colorado, Sept 28, 2021, Tracy Abell, https://tracyabell.com/blog/

I could tell you that I really like Aspen trees, but I really like a lot of trees for one reason or another. It’s fascinating that a group of aspen trees can be a colony of one single organism. Search the term “Pando” the Trembling Giant for more info.

Jumping across the big pond known as the Atlantic Ocean we head to merry old England…


Red Oak (Quercus rubra) at Blickling Hall, North Norfolk, England – 22 October 2022. IDV (Inexplicable Device) inexplicabledevice.blogspot.com

Just beyond this nice cluster of oak leaves looks like a nice spot for a picnic. If we’re lucky, maybe there are some blueberries left on IDV’s blueberry plant below.


Blueberry (Vaccinium somethingorother) at Hexenhäusli Device, North Norfolk, England – 27 October 2022. IDV (Inexplicable Device) inexplicabledevice.blogspot.com

Such a brilliant shade of red!

Back to the United States again for Mistress Maddie, who never disappoints and provides us with a big, beautiful, big Bigleaf Maple leaf. Honestly, the Scientists who came up with the common naming convention of the Bigleaf Maple weren’t feeling particularly creative that day. I might have called it a “Bearpaw Maple” if it were up to me. That’s 20% more creative, I think.

Bigleaf Maple leaf, New Hope, PA, USA. Mistress Maddie (making me do all the work for this photo caption, tsk tsk) http://mistressmaddie.blogspot.com/

I’ve put Patricia to work in providing us with wonderful poems to close out our monthly Photo Submissions. Like all of you who so generously provided pictures for this one, she also receives my love and gratitude (and when she takes a plane to visit me a coffee to boot!) More important than my love and gratitude though is that you get out there and enjoy the bounty of nature! The beauty of nature is all around us for those who make time to look for it!

I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do!

Taken on a street by the Old Redmond School House, Redmond, WA. USA. circa 2016. By Patricia Lezama

Embedded messages. 

She loved him, until he lost his last leaf.

Silently she watched it fall, golden and light, resting on the pavement.

She stared at it, then she cried.

How much beauty there is in farewells, she told him.

And she could see how her tears remained undaunted on the fallen leaf.

Breathe and feel the sound she heard.

The stillness of the water becomes a lens to decipher messages from other lands, embedded in the leaf blade.

Thirst is quenched slowly.

Listen to the drops.

Thirst does not exist, she observes.

It is said that she fell asleep hugging the roots of the grandfather tree.

And that in the silence of her dream, he cracked a smile, from which the first leaf of the next season sprouted.

November: Fungi/Mushrooms

Due: November 30th

Pictures will be posted on December 1st.

December: Nature at rest

Due: December 31st

Pictures will be posted on January 1st.

Photo Submissions

Email to: natureledlife@gmail.com

Subject line: Photo Submission for [month] (Multiple months of photos in one email is fine.)

Image: Attached as a .JPEG or .PNG file

Captions for each picture:

Subject in the photo, State/Providence & Country, Date (optional). Your name as you want it to appear, Your blog link (if you have one)

(This will save me so much time and reduce errors if I can copy and paste the photo details and not hunt for blog links, preferred names, etc.)

Feel free to add any interesting notes about a picture. I love stories and learning! Let me know if it’s just a story for ‘my eyes only’ or if I can share any part of it along with the photo.

Thank you!

26 thoughts on “October Submissions: Leaves”

  1. WELL, THAT WAS A LOVELY WALK DOW A NON-TROPICAL MEMORY LANE. SEE? I’M SO MISTY OVER THE LEAVES I’VE HIT MY CAPS LOCK!
    WHAT A SHAME I DIDN’T MANAGE TO GETR A DECENT PHOTO OF THE HUNDREDS OF BRILLIANT RED TERMINALIA LEAVES! BUT I THINK I MIGHT FIND AN OLD PIC AND POP IT ON MY BLOG.
    THANKS, EVERYONE.

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  3. Melanie – totally wonderful Blog. South Florida does not have many plants with leaves that have different seasons – I never thought of crotons. I will try to do a better job for next month’s feature – mushrooms. MJR

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    1. Being in October and everyone (in the US, at any rate) thinking of the famous areas for Fall leaves, they might not have forgotten about their own nearby leafy friends. It’s about more than color change though, texture and shape are also nice differences to appreciate.

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    2. Dear Melanie and Mary (Melanie’s Mother-in-Law),

      These evocative leafy submissions for October conjure up vividly a dynamic autumn scenery involving falling autumn leaves! I am going to resonate with the spirit of such October submissions musically. After all, those colourful leaves remind me of the 1945 popular French song “Les feuilles mortes” (literally “The Dead Leaves”) sung by Edith Piaf and Yves Montand with music by Joseph Kosma and lyrics by poet Jacques Prévert, and later translated into English as “Autumn Leaves” by the American songwriter Johnny Mercer in 1947.

      Included here is the version sung by Nat King Cole. It is indeed a very nostalgic song. I hope that you like it.

      Mary, thank you for composing this latest post of yours as we enjoy the final month of autumn in November.

      Yours sincerely,
      SoundEagle

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    3. Dear Melanie and Mary,

      Oops! Please pardon my typo. In my previous comment, I meant to type “Melanie, thank you for composing this latest post of yours as we enjoy the final month of autumn in November.

      By the way, my own October submissions can be found in this visually striking post entitled “🌤️🍂 An October to Remember: Greeting Post-Pandemic and Post-Elizabethan Age 👑🏰 with Opals, Calendulas, Poems and Songs 📿🏵️📜🎶“, published at

      🌤️🍂 An October to Remember: Greeting Post-Pandemic and Post-Elizabethan Age 👑🏰 with Opals, Calendulas, Poems and Songs 📿🏵️📜🎶

      Please enjoy this stylishly presented post to your heart’s content!

      Yours sincerely,
      SoundEagle

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    1. Aw gee, there’s really not much talent needed for sharing the work that others helped create! 🙂 I’m just glad my power came back on so that I met the deadline! We had a bit of a windstorm and were without power for 14 hours the day before.

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  10. Crotons! Now they really are a surprise. I think they look very sci-fi – especially the black leaves with the red bits.

    It was warm enough for a picnic under those red oaks, but the ground was very wet – plus we probably would have had to provide extra for all the bloody geese that were around (although, none of them managed to get in shot there).

    Love the water droplets on that leaf by Patricia!

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