Birch
Betula sp. · Trees - Deciduous
Birch leaf, going
New Hampshire, 11 October 2020
On the litter, part way through being taken apart. The dark blotches are where fungi and bacteria have already worked through the soft tissue between the veins; the pale mesh is the vein network, which is lignified and much harder to digest, so it goes last. Given another few weeks this would be a skeleton.
That decay is the whole economy of the forest. Almost every nutrient a tree uses has been through a leaf, onto the ground, and back up through the roots several times over.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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