Native Fall

gray-red saltmarsh

gray-green trees

gray-brown grasslands

gray-gray shrublands

gray-blue far-away hills

sky alternating gray to blue, forth and back

Then the November spring-cleaning crew

Washing the sky to brilliant blue

Now the farthest hills stand out sharp

and high mountains dazzling white-capped

White-capped sea

and ground grows green again

California is most like (with regard to overall color of the landscape): desert, although floristically totally unlike California, more like tropics. Great Basin, Mediterranean.

California is most unlike: wet tropics (all dazzling bright green all year); wet temperate forest (green in summer; orange/yellow/red in fall); montane and boreal forest (all white in winter; uniform dark-green conifers)