30 October 2026 – I’ve already chattered about the discoveries we make when that chlorophyll curtain falls. Here’s one more chatter on the same subject.

We’re at the R. Foy Forster Cypress Pond in the VanDusen Botanical Garden. It is home to, as you might anticipate, a great many cypress trees. The Taxidum distichum, to be exact, known in its more informal moments as the “bald cypress.”

This is because, unlike most members of the Cupressaceae family, it is deciduous rather than evergreen. Spring and summer, its feathery leaves are bright green. Like this. Green on green on green.

Come winter, it has bare branches. This cypress is bald.

But… in fall? When it is almost bald? When all those other colours jump out from behind the green curtain?

It is a wonder.

All those shades. All those textures.

And, for added delight…

all those knees (aerial roots), dancing a jig at water’s edge.