Hey! This is a real earth phenomenon, so not off-topic? Every year, after I have raked up all the Oak leaves in the front yard, the mulberry tree drops all of its leaves in the span of a couple of hours, for apparently no reason. This year, being a scientist and all, I though I would pay close attention. It was really windy the other day, and all the other trees were changing color and dropping their leaves...but not all in one day...most trees lose their leaves here over the coarse of 2 weeks. But, the Mulberry maybe lost 1 leaf..and they did not chance color at all. The night before last theer was a light freeze. But, the mulberry did not lose any leaves, and still green. Last night, ther was a hard freeze (-5 or 6 C), but this morning the Mulberry had all of its leaves, and they were still green. But, at 8:30, when the sun was shining on them, they started falling...with no wind, as in previous years. But, this time I immediately went for a walk around the neighborhood, and all the Mulberries were dropping all of their green leaves. Now, ours has maybe 10 leaves left. Then, I drove down towards the Piermont Pier (New York, on Hudson), where there is a big line of Mulberries along the causeway (the "pier"). The remaining leaves were colored, and most had already fallen on previous days (few were on the ground, and they were not actively falling). So, different type of Mulberry? Or, different behavior? Is it the freeze that did it? Would all of the trees in my neighborhood have waited until a freeze, or would they all have dropped their leaves in the same 2 hour period if it had not frozen? What kind of signal is the tree sending to eject its leaves? Does it talk to other Mulberries? That one 100 meters away? But not the ones 5 km away? Can mulberry trees detect currents in the ground and would they drop their leaves before a quake if you planted them along an active fault? Or, only if they quake was going to come the day after the first freeze? I will report next year whether it really takes a freeze.

Well, these being important questions, I went to google.com, and typed in:
"mulberry leaves falling after freeze"
The second link that I looked at was #7 (really!). The relevant post was from 4 years ago...same season...it is linked but the relevant part is pasted here:

I turned on my TV at 6:15 a.m. and discovered I wasn't necessarily living in a Republican world any more. In fact, none of us were living in a world we recognized. We were literally in "Oz," that place between dream and waking where the normal rules don't apply. Gore had wone the popular vote but Bush might be President. But maybe not, because a lot of people had voted for Buchanan by mistake.

Head spinning, I let my dog out into the front yard, only to observe an unusual sight. We'd had a sudden freeze the night before, and now every leaf on my Fruitless Mulberry tree was falling. The leaves were green but they were falling, without the benefit of wind. I stood there watching a carpet of leaves appear in the stillness and said to myself "Unusual weather we're having, ain't it," my favorite line from "The Wizard of Oz."

Oh. Yeah...Piermont Pier. One million soldiers left for Europe from Piermont Pier during WWII. Its pretty and peaceful out there now. Hopefully they won't have to use it again if the voice (God?) in W's head tell him to invade Iran.

Chris

• Mulberry leaves