Allelopathy

Last autumn I found myself reading, quite out of school, about the secret lives of maples. The experience left me little ground for sentiment. It fairly shaded me out. The pigments that color autumn leaves are herbicidal. Come the fall, trees blanket the ground with toxins uncongenial to competitors for their little plots of real-estate. How like one another we all are. Tenacity & self-regard ignite the whole spectacle.

That maple tree is getting itself off again:
Ten thousand baby-hands clutch
At their own roots, their mossy grounds.

Well, so it is. Even the delicate hands of the Japanese maple have their role to play in holding down the native fort. Emily Dickinson (innocent of Darwin) builded better than she knew when she put pen to paper in the fall of 1862:

The name – of it – is “Autumn”–
The hue – of it – is Blood –
An Artery – upon the Hill –
A Vein – along the Road –

[N.B. Botanists have a name for the peculiar form of chemical warfare that trees engage in: "allelopathy," the "path," of course, leading to "pathogen." Here are links to 2 web-sites explaining the business:
1. Allelopathy. 2. Dye-Hard.]

Below, a Kyoto equation: leaves=money=leaves=money.
Even great temples make a living, come the fall.