72 Microseasons of the Pacific Northwest

Vine maple (Acer circinatum) is the Pacific Northwest's most spectacular native understory tree in autumn, and its peak color arrives in the first days of October at lower and mid elevations. Unlike bigleaf maple — which turns the canopy butter-yellow — vine maple flames from the forest floor up, with leaves shifting through amber, tangerine, and incandescent scarlet depending on light exposure. Shaded plants tend toward yellow and gold; those in clearings or forest edges reach a deep crimson red that practically glows against wet Douglas-fir bark. Vine maple is nearly ubiquitous throughout the wet west side of the Cascades, the Olympic Peninsula, BC coastal forests, and the Coast Range. Its wiry, multi-stemmed form — sometimes nearly horizontal under heavy snow load — arches over trails and stream banks, creating tunnel-like corridors of color. The Tamanawas Falls Trail at the eastern foot of Mount Hood, the trails around Carbon River in Mount Rainier National Park, and nearly any forest trail on the western Olympic Peninsula offer spectacular vine maple shows in early October. On Vancouver Island, old logging roads through second-growth forest are lined with vine maple that erupts in fall. At this time the understory is simultaneously losing its ferns (as sword ferns go semi-dormant) and gaining dramatic color from vine maple and red huckleberry shrubs. The combination of colors in the dim green light of a fir forest — crimson, copper, yellow — is unique to this narrow window. Deer, Steller's jays, and varied thrushes move through these understories feeding on the last berries and fallen maple seeds before winter sets in.