looduskalender.ee

September 26
The Birches look similar although they are loosing leaves. But the Snowberry Bush (if that is what it is) is getting redder. You can see the Birch leaves on the brown grass.

I have noticed a lot of spiders this year, too.
Your trees are further along than ours - I think the trees at the front of my garden are the same as your peppercake trees! Mine are only just beginning to turn colour, though, and then only at the top.

Hi,Alice
Yes those birches are loosing leaves pretty fast. We had one,had to cut it down it was going rotten inside. No one was sorry,it seemed to lose leaves all year round.
Its a bit of a bind if you are supposed to keep the pavement in front and or, side of the house clean all year round... Our neighbours are all WONDERFUL at that...!! Do it every morning..!
I admit,I do have a sleep-in.

I think Americans are not so careful about our sidewalks. I did worry about the Elm leaves because they get gummy an slimy when wet and they could have posed a danger. Now that the elm is gone I do not have to worry about that -- but I still miss the tree.

A lot of birches around here are being affected by something. The tops die, people often cut out the top hoping to save them but it seems that almost always the whole tree dies.

Sweet Gums
These are ones near my house.
Sept. 27

Earlier




These are some of the Sweet Gums from less than 1/2 a kilometer away at exactly the same elevation -- downtown Corvallis is pretty flat.

Changing colours - thanks Alice.
I don't know gum trees. Or, at least, I can't think of any I have seen.

I think this page shows them pretty well
http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/4h/Sweetgum/sweetgum.htm
but I am not sure it mentions that they are native to the Southern US (it does mention it), because they grow fast and are pretty in the fall the city here planted LOTS of them, but I bet they are pretty rare in the rest of the world. Until I moved to Corvallis I did not know of them.

And those fruit are just NASTY they are the size of golf balls, not quite as hard, but they pose dangers for bikes and walkers.

Oops the wikipedia site is better and it has a nice map of their native region -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquidambar_styraciflua
Liquid Amber and wikipedia says those fruits, "gum balls," are known as ankle biters in California.

Alice, that reference led me to look up Hamamelis.
It is the same familty of Witch Hazel, yet so different!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamamelis

Family: Hamamelidaceae

Genus: Liquidambar

Species: L. styraciflua

Witch Hazel -
Family: Hamamelidaceae

Genus: Hamamelis

I do not recognize witch hazel at all -- I only know it in a bottle as a skin tonic

Pretties
September 25
Again I do not know what these leaves are but I think they are pretty.

Aah - I can join you in the dunce's corner! Bottles are easier to deal with!

Very pretty!
Can anyone identify that tree?

September 25
Again, more pretty leaves that I cannot identify

European birches at least often get a disease in America; they don't often reach reach mature or old age (80-100+ years) it seems.
We once had a guest researcher from Virginia. He came back from a weekend on Gotland (island off Swedish coast), totally in love with a tree. A birch, it turned out, the cut-leaf kind, probably an Ornäs birch. Love is unexplainable, beauty in the eye of the beholder, and the Ornäs birch a very elegant one. But still - just a birch?
Part of the answer was probably that his particular tree love was about 130 years old, and he had never seen a really full-grown birch tree.

Alice that pretty tree ;on Sept. 25th COULD be Hazelnut tree ?
The other 'prety leaves' ? Magnolia BUT here ours have longer 'seeds'.
I'll take a photo this w/e..

macdoum -- did you notice one of the pictures of a Sweet Gum on the wikipedia page is in France?

It is not Hazelnut -- they have a rounder leaf and can be confused with elm leaves. I love hazelnut trees, they are rather small, usually, but I think they are beautiful. Oregon grows a lot of hazelnuts and supplies a lot to nutella (or at least we used to).

Looks much like a lychee (sorry - maybe somebody already answered?) http://www.nipahutgardens.com/prodimages/lychee.bmp but they don't grow in Sweden, and there is another much larger tree, with rather similar fruits. Will check later!
PS, Arbutus unedo, Strawberyy tree, more likely guess!

Liis
I think I read that the Arbutus unedo is every green so won't work. Your first idea might be right. Lots of the plants in the garden where I took the picture were "food" plants amaranth, rosemary, artichoke etc...

I am going to spend some time at this site which has pictures of woody plants all over Corvallis and includes both common and Latin names. I wonder if other universities have similar plant sites Oregon State University does focus on farm and forestry kinds of studies.

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ldplants/in ... otheritems

Alice,maybe an Amelenchier canadensis . ?
see google; http://www.connon.ca/list5.php?genus=AM ... &category=

But Alice's tree with the curious pink-red fruits and coppery yellowish magnolia-type leaves?
Surely someone must recognise a tree (bush?) with such fruits - please!

Guesses have been lychee (Litchi) and strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo).
Litchi is evergreen and subtropical, Arbutus is evergreen and moderately warmth-loving (can be grown in Ireland, England).
So my money is on Strawberry tree.