A wooden fence with snow accumulating on it, rendered as a nineteenth-century engraving. Several steps went into this rendition—compensating for lens distortion, adjusting perspective, converting the picture to black-and-white, enhancing details two different ways, and finally the Colored Engraving filter by Lyle Kroll and David Tschumperlé, which is one of (at last count) 574 different filters and effects available in the G’MIC image-processing framework.
The American sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) is notable for its peeling bark, which comes off in sheets, leaving gleaming white underneath.
There are three species of Platanus in the United States, but P. occidentalis is the one that grows in the East, suggesting that some botanist was disoriented in the most literal possible sense.
Like many invasive species, Oriental Bittersweet came here because it was beautiful. Its berries make a lively splash of color in the winter, especially against a backdrop of evergreens. This vine was growing at the edge of the woods in Bethel Park.
Autumn Clematis (Clematis terniflora) produces great quantities of seeds, which accounts for the fact that we see it more and more in the wild, and that it has been tagged as an invasive species in some places. The seeds themselves are some of the most beautiful constructions in the world of seeds—they look like a school of tropical fish.
Fallen leaves accumulate at the edge of a parking lot.
