Plant: Sycamores and seasons.........

California sycamores (Platanus occidentalis) have gone through several phases since I first saw them in Costa Mesa.

When I arrived here in July, their broad leaves were rich green. Came September and they started yellowing. By November they were sporting yellowish-rust or golden color. January made them leafless.... February is here and the barren barks are cloaked with tender, light green leaves. All these months I have been enjoying the metamorphosis of these iconic California trees, going with the flow of rotation of seasons.  Lessons to learn from these giant trees.....

They put on different ensemble for each season...and the transformation in looks is stunning!!

Spring look...green foliage....the dormant buds unfurled...the bare trees got back their green crown....

But some of them are not so lucky...

The prolonged and harsh summer has taken toll on some of them...This sycamore is all dry ..no signs of life...such sights make me scared of the imminent summer..

Hard to believe they looked like this just a month back......

The spherical, woody fruits in summer...........

They hanging all though the autumn and winter months.... it is only in the last leg of winter the fruits withering away into tiny seeds, achenes, to be precise....

The sycamore is sporting fall foliage, creating an eye-catching contrast with the cypress, jacaranda, beech....

A closer shot...how precious it is to see the massive tree with a golden crown!!

It came across as a surprise, two sycamores standing adjacent to each other, yet one was all yellow, the other still green...

I could not resist looking up the fall-touched canopy and capture it...

A large sycamore in Aldrich Park, UCI...

Whats remarkable about this shot?....just look at the sycamore leaf..its almost four-fold bigger than the avergae sycamore leaf!....spotted it lying by the sidewalk, on my way home...

I got to know the famous chinar trees of Kashmir valley are sycamores only!!

Bare torso in winter...

Buds raring to break into leaves at the end of winter..

Tender leaves show up...

A twig with glossy, tender leaves....

Massive and coppery-hued in autumn...

The fruits dangling from the tree...

A fresh fallen leaf of California Sycamore.........

It's  surprising how trees of same genus growing in same habitat can respond to season distinctly...
I clicked these sycamore leaves same day...
One is tender green...

its tangerine, in keeping with autumn...

this one is dry, brittle...

Perhaps, it's something to do with how much sunlight they get....

A grove of sycamore in Mason regional park..........

Gracing streets in Irvine........

"A recurring dream troubles Santiago, a young and adventurous Andalusian shepherd. He has the dream every time he sleeps under a sycamore tree that grows out of the ruins of a church". ~ Paulo Coelho (The ALlchemist)

Its funny how I read this novel five years back and the above sentence with the mention of 'sycamore' troubled me, for I had no idea how this tree looks like.......and now this tree is like a keystone in the area I inhabit.......yeah, its abundant in South California.......