SILVER MAPLE LEAF PATTERN

Silver Maple Leaf under-sides with raindrops

As I sit here I can still hear the last rumblings off in the distance of the banging thunder storm that just went through my area. I am a thunder storm nut and revel in all the lightning , thunder, and pouring rain. Unfortunately my big brave Sal dog gets nervous with each clap and sticks to me like glue. I tell him to pretend it's a loud rock band in the sky.

In today's storm I decided to stand out on my covered front porch and take photos of raindrops falling on the Silver Maple tree in front of my house. My porch gave me cover from the pouring rain. 

Little did I know that my camera was about to teach me something about the leaves of my Silver Maple until I opened the results of my photos in Picassa. It was then that  I noticed the textured under-sides of the leaves were holding a multitude of raindrops while the upper-sides were smooth and acted more as a slide for the raindrops. At first this organization of the leaf pattern stumped me. 

The photo at the top is the whitish-green under-sides of the Maple leaves loaded with "held" raindrops of all sizes.. The photo at the bottom of this post is the green upper-side of the Maple leaves showing their slick skin with barely a drop clinging. It appears that Mother Nature has designed the leaves so that the under-side stores the raindrops for tree use while the upper-side slides the raindrops to the earth below. If that is true, I'd say that is darn good system on the part of Mother Nature!

All connected -- for the benefit of all.

Silver Maple upper-side slick green pattern