Williamson's Weekly Nature Notes - December 10 2008

Few people will recall the wonderful autumn colours last year or any other year. Even so, I wonder to myself every year which trees give the best colours of all.

Are they the big beeches on the top of Goodwood's horse racing hill? They can be. Get the sunset from a clear-blue sky during a week of cool, even frosty, weather, and they appear to be on fire.

I always get the feeling that this is the last of summer going up in flames: a wonderful sight. Or are the best colours of all on the whitebeams? Their round leaves are yellow on one side, white on the other. When they fall there lies a 'chessboard' of lemon and silver. That is a memory that will last till next year.

Sometimes the red oaks planted by the late Edward James who owned the West Dean Estate and loved unusual trees claim the prize. But you have to see these tall specimens already competing with 200-year-old native oaks after a mere 30 years, at that one moment when the human-hand-shaped leaves with their glowing orange colour have a slanting sun on them to return the colour back into your eye. They knock spots off the native oaks, which have little leaves like gingerbread men.

Horse chestnuts might almost win on size alone, with that enormous 'ostrich foot'. They lie over the ground like slices of toast and are just as noisy. But colour? Well, dull, like burnt toast, I'd say.

Sweet chestnuts can sometimes give a magnificent display of colour as they hang a thousand yellow daggers from their branches. They look even better on the ground when you hunt through them for chestnuts.

But there is always one tree in the woods, but usually by the roadside in a hedge, which shines above all the rest. The field maple.

The leaves are small and obviously acer family, but the colour is like a lantern, often a brilliant yellow, sometimes an amber, oftentimes a brilliant orange that seems to shine out from the rest.

Pictured is the one in my wood against a dark blue autumn sky. I am sure it was the best ever this year.

However, the camera doesn't lie. It was just a good three years ago, six years ago: yes, and even 10 years ago as well.