in Thoreau’s Journal:

Sunday. I noticed on Friday, October 3d,

that the willows generally were green and unchanged.

The red maples varied from green through yellow to

bright red. The black cherry was green inclining to

yellow. (I speak of such trees as I chanced to see.) The

apple trees, green but shedding their leaves like most of

the trees. Elm, a dingy yellow. White ash, from green

to dark purple or mulberry. White oak, green inclining

to yellow. Tupelo, reddish yellow and red; tree bushed

about the head, limbs small and slanting downward.

Some maples when ripe are yellow or whitish yellow,

others reddish yellow, others bright red, by the accident

of the season or position, — the more or less light and

sun, being on the edge or in the midst of the wood; just

as the fruits are more or less deeply colored. Birches,

green and yellow. Swamp white oak, a yellowish green.

Black ash, greenish yellow and now sered by frost.

Bass, sered yellowish.

Color in the maturity of foliage is as variable and

little characteristic as naturalists have found it to be

for distinguishing fishes and quadrupeds, etc.