When do cypress trees change color?

 I would like to be able to tell you when the needles on the cypress trees change color and when they fall.

It would show a certain woodsy wisdom on my part, don’t you think?

But cypress trees are individuals. They seem to like to defy generalizations.

Last year in January, we walked around Woodlawn Lake. Some cypresses had some green needles. It was remarkable because most the cypresses along Elmendorf Lake were brown.

I looked for an environmental explanation. But Woodlawn Lake is 2.5 miles north of Elmendorf Lake. It’s not more sheltered from the cold fronts. 

It was only when I looked more carefully that I began to notice how much variation there was among individual trees. One was still green. One had some two-tone leaves, green and yellow. One was brown, with some shedding. One was almost bare, with brown needles deep on the ground.

What’s the meaningful generalization in all that?

The more I walk along the creek, the more I am aware of how my mind wants to devise rules to make order out of the bewildering variety of life. But the world is made of individuals, and they don’t always follow the rules.