What are the colours of autumns leaves in your world?

I live in a part of the world (the coast of south eastern Australia) where the trees I see from my window in my autumn (March, April, May) are the silvery green leaves of the non-deciduous Australian Eucalyptus trees. Like most of the trees in the Australian forests (or what we call the bush) they don’t show seasonal changes in the dramatic ways that the softer deciduous trees and other plants of Europe and northern America do. There is one very notable exception – the leaves of a tree in the middle of the Tasmanian bush in the autumn does change colour from gold, to orange to red. Ironically, it is one of the oldest trees in the world to do this and it’s called the Deciduous Beech Nothofagus gunnii. Of course in most tropical and sub-tropical parts of the world, including the north of Australia, there is no autumn – often there are just two seasons – the wet and the dry season.
So, this month’s challenge theme has me wondering what are the colours of autumn in different parts of the world? How might that difference bring different points of inspiration to your beading? In Lapland the colours of yellows, reds and browns sit aside the vivid colours of the northern lights, in Kyoto (Japan) the wonderful shifting and brilliant red colours of autumnal maple leaves attest to autumn and in Abruzzo (Italy) it’s the yellowing leaves of grapes vines, deep browns of ploughed fields and the purples and blacks of ripening olives on the trees that give autumn it’s special colours. As you think about this month’s challenge of the colours of autumn leaves falling maybe worlds outside your own could hold the key to your inspiration. I have included some suggested starting points below. Would love to hear from you about what the colours of autumn in your world are and if autumn is not in your world what might inspire you for this great challenge theme.

Sources

• http://www.nt2099.com/J-ENT/news/book-reviews/autumn-colors-of-kyoto-a-seasonal-portfolio-a-j-ent-book-review/
• http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/01/06/abo.mcn259.full
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Autumn_leaves_%28pantone%29_crop.jpg (Creative Commons liscene)
  
• http://www.abc.net.au/science/scribblygum/April2000/default.htm
  

Some sources of inspiration:

• Artwork – a great book is Fall Colors and Scenes in Modern ArtAutumn Paintings of Pissarro, Klimt, Metcalf, O’Keeffe and Jackson. See:
  
  http://www.suite101.com/content/fall-colors-and-scenes-a70728
• 
  Autumn in South Africa: http://sequoiagardens.wordpress.com/category/autumn-colour/ has lots of wonderful photos of autumn in south Africa
• 
  An artists guide to fall leaf colour is a great image to inspire: http://forestry.about.com/od/fallcolor/a/fall_leaf_color.htm
  
• 
  Google images: try searching using a combination of autumn and a country you don’t live in. Some surprising and inspiring images emerge.