Fall Colors

The unique and beautiful forests on Cumberland are even more so in early December.  This is when the plants of temperate origins start showing fall colors.  With reduced hours of sunlight, chlorophyll production eventually stops and their green leaves start revealing the usually hidden pigments of orange and yellow.  Cooler temperatures also play a roll in this transformation regulating the amount of carbohydrates that determine the intensity of red colors in autumn leaves.   On Cumberland however most of the dominant plants such as the live oak trees are sub-tropical and do not respond to these seasonal changes which means most of the forest stays green this time of year.  So this contrast of bright warm colored leaves against a green background or foreground is not only colorful, but gives a greater sense of depth to the forest.

Most all of our Island plants that show fall colors are salt sensitive so they will be found more on the western half of the Island, away from the ocean.  Trees with yellow leaves like black cherry and pig nut hickory grow on high, well drained ground and may be accompanied by vines of wild muscadine grape, poison ivy and Virginia creeper, which are actually the first plants to show fall colors. 

In the lower, fresh water wetland areas, trees like red maple, tupelo and sweet gum stand out in various shades of red.  Anyone exploring the Island now will also notice a number of red bay trees with dead leaves on them, even though this species normally stay green all year.  A couple years ago, an exotic beetle from Asia made its way to Cumberland and other areas up and down the coast throughout the range of the red bay.  Forestry people I’ve talked to say they don’t have a practical way of stopping it and the beetle could possibly eliminate all of the red bay trees in the region in the near future.  This is a very common tree on Cumberland, so with it gone, we don’t know how the system will react.  On a more positive side, we are really seeing the benefits of last summers big forest fire on the north end of the Island.  Several years ago, the Georgia state forestry people found bark beetles becoming established in some of the pine trees on the north end of the Island and said a fire would help keep them under control.  Well, we sure got the fire and we know for a fact that it has helped the forest in many ways; as the burn area has greened up nicely.  We are also seeing some fall colors up there as the leaves of the winged sumac trees are now turning bright red. 

These color changes might not seem like much to someone used to more northern forest, but here, they serve as a reminder that Cumberland is in a transitional location where the effects of both the sub-tropics and the southern temperate zones can be witnessed in the vegetation and December is the best month to see the differences.