Autumn

" Autumn in August? Don't be silly," you might well say, as people head to the beach and speed boats plough their way along the Languedoc coast. But let me tell you of few strange occurrences. First of all, for the past few years in August, the magnificent horse chestnut trees have begun to turn a russet brown. This year is no different. This must be a very early harbinger of autumn , I have always thought. But not so perhaps! 'Le Monde' also described this phenomenon in a recent newspaper report. Apparently it occurs in cities, where a caterpillar , the horse chestnut leaf miner, creates tunnels, and causes the leaves to dry out. If this is what is happening here too, then perhaps this is not a harbinger of autumn after all. What a relief. I fear that the year passes by too quickly as it is.

Shiny brown conkers will soon litter the ground at the trees' base. In Britain children may avidly collect them for threading on string , to see who can be the first to shatter each other's conker. In Gourgas they will lie neglected, for this game is unknown in these parts.

So how and when does autumn normally occur?This is how we have witnessed it over the years . Petit à petit, as is said in France, the forest begins to colour up. The first of our trees to drop its leaves is usually the ash, as they turn a dingy yellow. But certainly never in August. The maple leaves colour more dramatically, but this comes later , and happens more gradually too. Slowly, they turn orange, yellow, russet brown, and even crimson. Then after the first frost we may find a soft colourful carpet at our feet , as the large palmate leaves drop all at once. The Montpellier maple has much smaller leaves, and these turn bright red.

But while all this is happening, normally our deciduous oak trees (chêne pubescens) remain resolutely bright green and summery. Indeed , even after they have turned a full golden brown, many leaves will still cling to the trees throughout the winter. But just look at the photographs I have taken this morning. It is only mid-August, and yet some of these oak leaves are already turning. Is there a new caterpillar that is affecting our oaks too, or has autumn begun early?I turned to the article in 'Le Monde' newspaper, to find out what might be happening. This tells me that "in some French regions, the landscape has already taken on a premature autumnal appearance." So why , I wonder? Apart from the leaf miner caterpillar, there is another factor at work. In June we saw our first serious heat wave. Trees were able to keep cool by the process of transpiration , losing moisture through the stomata, and so they remained fresh and green. But as this summer has progressed there has been little or no rain, and so in order to preserve their moisture, the leaves have closed their stomata, causing an increase in tension. Consequently the leaves can no longer receive enough sap, and they may die prematurely. Not serious, if this happens infrequently, but it can lead to tree dieback if it happens too often. In this period of rapid climate change , when above all we need trees to absorb excess carbon dioxide, this does not bode well.

Sadly, there is also another phenomenon occurring, and this one is affecting our ash trees. This is a fungal disease known as 'ash die back.' Where once our large ash tree provided shade beside our swimming pool in summer, this becomes less and less as the years pass. We have been very reluctant to cut this and its neighbouring ash tree down, but we do know that it really should be done. What's more, it is now that we should be thinking of future generations, and planting trees for them, just as our predecessors did, when they created this property from a tiny agricultural smallholding.

But for the moment all is not completely lost, for the many plane trees that line our roads are still proudly bearing their green leaves. But even then, as the wind gets up, I spot some large brown leaves blowing around at their base. Before too long, the council lorries will arrive to tidy them into piles, and suck them up. Only then will I know that autumn has well and truly arrived.