Bright Leaves on a Dark Morning

   Most people would have chosen yesterday, with its warm temperature, sunshine and vivid blue sky, to capture the brilliant colors of the changing leaves here on Mt. Lucas.  I chose to take advantage of the weather by paddling on Dry Creek and Lake Austin, taking in the last of the season's dragonflies, and disturbing a great blue heron, numerous ducks, and an osprey.

So this morning, I thought I'd take those pictures I never got to yesterday, even if they aren't quite as brilliant, with today's cold rainy grey.  They were their own rays of sunshine, and the water helped boost the colors.

A few Cedar Elm leaves.

A foot-high (Balcones) Escarpment black cherry.  This tree is endemic to the Escarpment, meaning it lives here and only here.  It's also considered rare. This little one is the daughter of a large one that grows in my yard.  May she grow many more daughters!

This pearl milkweed vine was very happy this summer,
climbing about 15 feet up using an American Elm. 
It has kept its leaves, even as the tree shed its own.

And of course, the lovely reds of a young, three-foot high oak
bordering my driveway.  I nurtured her after the 2011 drought,
and she had grown two feet since then, but s/he and I soon
will have to negotiate access to sun with access to driveway.

Lastly, the completely accurately named Flame Leaf Sumac. 
This one came to me as a volunteer in an abandoned pot
where a non-native big box plant had died.  Sometimes it pays to procrastinate.