At Sunset Rock, some trees grow on only four to six inches of material over solid granite. “That’s all mostly duff too. That’s not even dirt.” With so little beneath it, a tree can begin changing before the same species rooted more deeply a few yards away. Renfro says the difference can be large enough to read across a mountainside: “Looking out on the mountains, you’ll see an area that maybe is not as pronounced of an outcrop as this, but it looks like it’s forested and then all of a sudden, two weeks before the fall color hits, it starts turning. And you know that there’s probably shallower soils there or some type of environmental stressor.” From the road, the result can look almost identical. One tree turns red because its fruit is ready and it wants to be seen. Another turns early because the ground beneath it is thin and the tree is under strain.
That distinction runs through the whole season. The chemistry inside a changing leaf is remarkably consistent. What varies across the mountain is when that chemistry begins, what sets it in motion and which colors a tree produces once the green starts
to disappear.
Left: An American robin feeds among Virginia creeper berries, doing exactly what the plant needs: carrying seed beyond the parent vine. Above : Andrew Renfro examines the thin layer of soil and duff above the granite at Sunset Rock. Bottom Right : American chestnut survives across the Plateau mostly as sprouts rising from persistent root systems.
A SIGNAL IN THE TREES
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