Variations in Foliage

The dying leaf

After treatment with Round Up, poison-oak looks like this:

After being cut, it looks like this:

Poison-oak is “dry deciduous”. It runs out of water in the driest locations in late May. A few leaves have turned white, which is not distinctive; other plants are showing the same changes. Some of the damage may be due to insects and trauma:

By July this is happening more often, and the color of the dying leaflets is distinctive:

In August the typical dying leaflet is orange, and red-orange in September and early October:

The typical leaflet is fire-engine red, often on the ground underneath the plants, from October 15 through November.