If you walk through the cemetery right now, you might think that fall is coming early.
Some trees are losing their leaves,
and when you crunch through the leaf litter, it smells like fall.
It turns out that only the horse chestnuts are dropping their leaves, but it's not because their yearly schedule is off. They have anthracnose. That's an umbrella term for diseases of hardwoods caused by a group of related fungi. It seems that the cemetery only has a problem with the fungus Glomerella cingulata, known to attack horse chestnuts; I haven't seen evidence of anthracnose on any other type of tree.
The fungus starts out by killing spots on the leaves.
These spots grow bigger...
and eventually the entire leaf dies.
There are some trees with not a bit of green left. Although the fungus won't kill a tree, the defoliation will weaken it over time. The horse chestnuts in Green-Wood appear to be strong, though. They've managed to bear fruit despite their infection.
Right now, if you went into Green-Wood and looked at a horse chestnut, you'd see branches with big sticky terminal buds. Inside the buds contain the beginnings of the flower panicles you'll see in spring. For more peeks inside a horse chestnut bud, go to the blog "Beyond the Human Eye."
Chartreuse really catches your eye this time of year. While most other leaves are on the verge of changing to red, yellow, orange, the horse chestnuts, after having dropped all of their mature leaves due to anthracnose, are pushing out brand new ones.
Out of these sticky buds...
come both leaves and flowers.
I'm not sure these will get pollinated. Even if they do, the fruit will probably not make it to maturity as winter is around the corner.
Nearby, a mature fruit from the first wave was sitting on top of a monument.
It turns out that only the horse chestnuts are dropping their leaves, but it's not because their yearly schedule is off. They have anthracnose. That's an umbrella term for diseases of hardwoods caused by a group of related fungi. It seems that the cemetery only has a problem with the fungus Glomerella cingulata, known to attack horse chestnuts; I haven't seen evidence of anthracnose on any other type of tree. 
