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We had a taste of summer on our last visit to Corson's Brook Woods, equal parts blue sky, warm sun and green leaves. So why was it snowing just outside the forest? Drifts of white cottony fluff floated by, piling up among blades of a grassy lawn. I snatch one out of the air. Its silken hairs quickly separate to reveal a single tiny seed. I spot the source: a copse of cottonwood trees several hundred feet away. Walking across the street to the woods, I'm hit by the heady scent of a familiar flower, Japanese honeysuckle. The fragrance transports me back to childhood when my sister and I would pick them from a fence near our grammar school. We pulled the anthers out to slurp the nectar from the floral base. See a larger version of the forest from this week. Compare with the enlarged version of last week's image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

GALVESTON -- The lush canopy of trees shading Galveston's Victorian homes is gone, claimed by the saltwater storm surge of Hurricane Ike. But in the three years since the storm, the barrier island's citizens have led a grass-roots effort to preserve the memory of the trees by carving more than 35 sculptures from the remaining stumps, which stand among thousands of replanted saplings. More than 35,000 of Galveston's trees -- many planted after the devastating 1900 hurricane -- were cut down after Ike. The tree sculptures, carved from stumps still rooted in the ground, have become a whimsical yet reverent way to remember the past in the face of this loss. Three sculptors have been at work since late 2009, grinding away with chainsaws and chisels to transform the stumps into dolphins and angels and birds. Their work has become one of the island's most-popular tourist attractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CORRECTION APPENDED October, said the calendar. Before Halloween. And the 2.5 million trees occupying New York City's open spaces confirmed it was fall -- not winter -- with glorious canopies of leaves stretching along their boughs. Yet snow was falling. Not a light, mischievous form of frozen precipitation, either, but heavy, wet flakes driven on the gusts of an angry weather system barreling across the Northeast from the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday, cracking sturdy limbs and toppling power lines as it went. It also shattered records, threatening some more than a century old, and elicited the kinds of warnings from public officials that are not usually heard until deep in winter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WISE RIVER, Mont. -- The trees spanning many of the mountainsides of western Montana glow an earthy red, like a broadleaf forest at the beginning of autumn. But these trees are not supposed to turn red. They are evergreens, falling victim to beetles that used to be controlled in part by bitterly cold winters. As the climate warms, scientists say, that control is no longer happening. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

BARRO COLORADO ISLAND, Panama -- Stefan Schnitzer paused along one of the trails that crisscross this forested island in the Panama Canal waterway. Around him were trees, their high canopies muting the light from the tropical sun, the occasional woody vine, or liana, climbing up their thick trunks. But Dr. Schnitzer's attention was turned to a break in the forest just a few yards off the trail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At 5 a.m. on Wednesday, the sun had yet to peek through the jungle canopy in this country's Guaviare Department when the guerrillas told their captives to gather their belongings. A call had come in from a top adviser to Alfonso Cano, their new supreme commander. He said to move. Immediately. Or so the guerrillas thought. In fact, the gravelly voice that sounded so full of authority belonged not to a grizzled leader of Latin America's most feared insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, but rather to a government officer. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on the First International Canopy Conference held in Sarasota, Florida. Comments of scientists on the canopy of trees; Details of the organic findings in the canopy; Importance of the conference.

Discusses the Wind River Canopy Crane, sponsored by the United States Forest Service, and the University of Washington. Examination of forest canopy science; Focus on Jerry Franklyn, a forest ecologist; Benefits of the canopy.