Picture: beech. Click here for more autumn colour photos.
Autumn colours are generally at their best in the first two to three weeks of November: indeed, it is this period rather than late October which normally sees the finest displays.
In particular it is often in the second to third week of the month - though sometimes as early as late October - that beech woods come into their full glory. This occurs when the gold and yellow colours of the foliage - visible on stand-alone trees and external faces from early October - extend right down to path level in the woods. When this happens, the scene is a riot of wonderful tints, but the effect often does not last long, with the leaves soon falling or being blown off by gales.
Otherwise in the last stages of leaf fall the main colour is coming from oak (briefly gold and then rusty brown), hazel (a mix of green and rather muted yellows, though sometimes bright yellows after a sudden cold snap: its last leaves can be reluctant to fall), birch (whose remaining leaves are a lovely shiver of gold), field maple (whose diminutive bright yellow leaves are very prominent in hedgerows and tree boundaries) and Norway maple (sharp pointed leaves: fine yellow colours).
Hornbeams also usually do not attain their best colour until November (yellow or gold and sometimes reddish), and sweet chestnut likewise becomes particularly noticeable at this time, its remaining foliage mostly a magnificent golden or copper-colour.
Some limes last into November too, occasionally producing bright yellows towards the end, and this is also true of sycamores, particularly on smaller trees. Wych elm trees and English elm shrubs in hedgerows may hold onto some yellow leaves, usually quite muted in tone, but sometimes brighter.
Other trees that reliably have some foliage left at this time include alder (whose leaves never tint and whose last green leaves can look a bit invisible amidst its welter of cones and catkin buds), goat willow (which only manages dull greens, yellows, golds or browns and so is rarely noticed), and London plane (a street/park tree but quite a widespread one, with generally muted gold or yellow tints).
Weeping willows are robust too, tinting only slightly (rarely going a stronger yellow or even yellowy-gold) and usually not going bare until after the end of general leaf fall.
Note also larch. It is the only conifer to lose its foliage, and before it does so, its needles turn a fine golden hue - something that only happens at the very end of the leaf fall season, typically these days in the third or fourth week of November. Once on the ground, the needles make a vibrant display on the woodland floor.
Other fallen leaves that make colourful carpets (as well as mitigating the effects of mud and obscuring some woodland paths) include field maple and Norway maple (both yellow), hornbeam (yellow or gold); and sweet chestnut and oak (copper or gold).
Of course the colours soon fade and over time the leaves are pulled down into the earth by worms to be consumed, but beech leaves carpet woodland with coppers and golds throughout the winter. Common whitebeam leaves also remain distinctive for a long time after falling, their chestnut brown uppersides and silvery underside making them much more noticeable then they were on the tree.
(See Tree by tree - the autumn sequence for more details about which leaves fall and when, and Introduction to leaf fall in the October pages for the reasons for the various autumn colours. For tinting/leaf fall on shrubs see November bushes, berries and seeds).
The last lingering leaves
Leaf fall is typically more or less over by the end of the third week of November but some leaves can linger on till the end of the month, or even into December (see December trees and shrubs). In particular oak often does not tint widely (and reach its best golden colour) until most other trees are bare, and can retain dead leaves on its branches well into December - or all winter on saplings or lower branches.
Beech hedges that have been trimmed in the previous year will also keep dead foliage until spring, and again this is sometimes true of lower branches and saplings. In addition, a few leaves on all the other trees mentioned in the first section above may survive for a short period after the general leaf fall is over.
Even if leaf fall occurs earlier than usual, some foliage may still last till late November or even December. For example, 2010, 2015 and 2020 saw a sudden rush of colour at the end of October, with many trees bare by the end of the first week of November. But in all three years oaks did not turn until the second or third week of November, and larch not till the third week.
Bare branches
Whenever it comes, the realisation that autumn colours are gone and the leaves are now bare is a sombre moment. The countryside looks bleak and on a grey day walks become a rather perfunctory exercise.
A consolation is the sight of bare tree branches etched black against the sky. Suddenly one notices their fascinating outlines, as well as views through them that were hidden all summer by foliage. Some trees, indeed, are quite recognisable in winter, despite the lack of leaves – the rounded shape of the oak, the way ash twigs turn up at the end, the silvery bark of the birch, and the myriad straight shoots growing up from the base of hazel.
Alder is the only tree with both cones and catkin buds, and you may see balls of mistletoe (usually on poplar and lime, but sometimes also on apple, maples and hawthorn). Also last season's birds' nests: it is interesting to see what sites the birds chose.
Shorn of their foliage, some shrubs and trees also reveal the bright colours of their twigs. Those of dogwood are a bright red, while those of crack willow may glow orange. In sunlight, weeping willow fronds can be an attractive yellowy-brown. All trees and bushes have their buds set ready to produce next spring’s leaves – black ones on ash, sticky brown ones on horse chestnut, small brown ones on beech, and so forth.
More November pages:
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