It is a good season to check the maple trees.  The "feng" in my first name "Yifeng"  stands for maple. Back in China we have a maple tree in my grandparents' yard. It looks more like the one on the left. I believe my name must have something to do with that tree. But we also have a loquat tree in the yard, along with mandarin and peach trees. Other than those we also had  canna lily there, but I was named after the maple in the end.  In Chinese culture maple is somehow symbolic (and romantic?). Many Chinese poets  praise their beautiful red colors when the season changes. 

Now we know that is just chlorophyll breaks down and  anthocyanin coming up.  But this doesn't stop us from appreciating their beauty at all. 

My life is too short for me to understand a lot of things, including the handedness of flower petals and the fractal patterns of fern leaves. Why they grow that way? A universal answer to these questions is "they are trying their best to adapt to the environment during the evolution."  But it is too far away from satisfying.  

When I was a graduate student I took the class of chemical crystallography, where I learned that there are 230 space groups in crystal structures. The thing probably apply here for the flowers and leaves too. Looking online I see there does exist review article summarizing the evolution of floral symmetry, as well as research articles explaining why the fern leaves grow in such a fractal form.  

This is the Japanese pool where they have newts.  I saw them during warmer weathers, along with a lot of water striders. This season I don't see any of them.  Every once in a while there was a dragonfly passing by. Other than that, only leaves and reflection of leaves floating quietly. 

Tiny waves were spreading on the surface. Two waves met and they started to interfere, the pattern reminded me of the slides from my undergraduate  physics. The sky is blue, just like the cover of the physics textbook. I wasn't really good at physics at that moment, but I enjoy watching wave interferences at this moment. 

Duckweed. I don't really like duckweed since I was a kid.  I was told they grow super fast and  block the sunshine for the aquatic species living underneath. Seeing them far away always reminds me some green mucus, which doesn't sound clean or comfortable in any sense.

It turned out to be the first time I take a close look at them, and the leaves actually look like little butterflies. They floated around,  like continents floating on the ocean. This one splits apart, those two merged together. I stayed here and watched these mini plate tectonics for a while.