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News & ArtsThursday, November 17, 2011
??!! The Leaves Are Gigantic
Posted by Jen Graves on Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 9:54 AM
- ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEAVES. This photo doesn't even capture how giant this leaf was. It was so big I almost moved in.
Someone the other day told me it has to do with the extra rain this summer. Fact? Fiction?
Meanwhile, enjoy them before they're all raked up. You can wear them as face masks. They're that big.
6
These leaves have been there, directly over your head, all summer, you know. They're from a plant called, for some reason, a "bigleaf maple". A foot across is the same as every year; they can get twice that big.
7
Makes for a nice mix with the food waste in our yard waste composting.
Plus, big enough to scoop up dog poo safely.
Plus, big enough to scoop up dog poo safely.
11
I think MacCrocodile has hit the nail on the head. Someone should really investigate why Jen is shrinking.
12
if I stare at this detached hand long enough it starts to look like a grotesque alien appendage. [not to knock your hand; its relatively good looking]
14
that's mostly fact, but it's a lot more to do with the consistency of extra rain from may til june - big leaf maple is one of those species that grows all its leaves at once, so that every leaf is exactly the same age (this is different than, say, ashes, which keep growing more leaves throughout the growing season). all those leaves were already the size they are now way back in mid-june, but you're too short to see it.
in years when there's lots of water consistently and just enough brightness to keep sugar levels up in late spring, then more and more water is brought into those young leaf cells to dilute all that sugar. then those chubby little water-filled cells loosen up their walls to accommodate all the water, so the whole leaf gets even bigger than it would during drier, cooler late springs. it also helps that with our last late winter being so mild the sugar stores inside the roots are already thawed and ready to contribute to new leaves - jump starting giant leaves.
yay botany!
in years when there's lots of water consistently and just enough brightness to keep sugar levels up in late spring, then more and more water is brought into those young leaf cells to dilute all that sugar. then those chubby little water-filled cells loosen up their walls to accommodate all the water, so the whole leaf gets even bigger than it would during drier, cooler late springs. it also helps that with our last late winter being so mild the sugar stores inside the roots are already thawed and ready to contribute to new leaves - jump starting giant leaves.
yay botany!
16
I gotta agree with @15. We had lots of these growing in the woods behind my house when I was a kid. I always thought they were just normal, and the leaves of a regular maple were weirdly small.
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