New England is famous for its colorful plants. The color is most prominent in the autumn, when the leaves of hardwood trees turn almost any color of the rainbow. A shorter colorful season also occurs in the spring, when muted red and yellow tones appear amongst the greens of new leaves. Even in midsummer, there are subtle differences in the colors of the trees. In winter, some species hold their leaves even through the coldest days.

One of the main components of my job is mapping the extent of different sorts of vegetation using aerial photos. The detail and variety of these photos has become astonishing in the last few years. Often I come across fall or spring photos and am presented with a rainbow of colors, and I realize I don't actually have a good understanding of exactly what color each species turns in the fall, and at what time the leaves emerge in the spring. Add in differences in elevation and microclimate and the patterns of leaf color can become VERY complex.

iNaturalist is a great place to track the color of leaves, because each observation comes with a photo, a location, and a time. If I get enough people adding to this, we could build up an expansive database of how leaf color varies over the year and from year to year. Not only will that help me make maps of different natural communities, but it will help track how our changing climate affects the life cycle of our trees as well. Besides... everyone loves pictures of fall color, and most people are taking these photos anyway. This will be a fun way to share them with others.

This project is a place to document and share color patterns. I'm most interested in anything you can see in a high-resolution aerial photo - not just overstory trees but wetland and meadow plants as well . For instance, the goldenrods that bloom in late summer can definitely be seen from aerial photos. Even the patterns of sphagnum moss in bogs can sometimes be seen from above.

I'm limiting this to plants for now, though I'm sure somewhere in Vermont there is a moose that can be seen on Google or Bing imagery. If you don't know what a plant is, please mark it as 'plantae' or otherwise designate it as a plant so it can be part of the project.

Thanks so much! I'll post info and updates on slowwatermovement.blogspot.com . menos ↑