According to the calendar it was yesterday that autumn began. Again we had great weather and on a little tour to a small town east of Vienna I discovered this:
No, this is no hallucination and yes, in Austria (as elsewhere on the northern hemisphere) chestnuts are in bloom only in spring and surely not at this time of year. Nevertheless, here you are: a chestnut flower in mid of september.
Explanations I've got some. Firstly, this tree most likely is ill and probably even infested with the horse-chestnut leaf miner. But if you ask for my opinion I don't think that this is the case. This tree is only one of many - of different species, even some birch trees showed similar signs - which showed brown leaves already in july and had at the time I was taking this picture (meaning: yesterday) hardly any 'old' leaves left.
No, my guess would be: this tree dried out in july as so many others did, and as it was very weak before this dry summer already it started to grow his spring buds as soon as there was enough wetness in the earth to be able even begin to try. (You might remember, we had heavy rains before finally indian summer arrived.)
Whatever the reasons, for a fact we know that this tree has now wasted his spring buds which, with chestnuts (and trees in general), not only grow the blossoms but the sprouts too: the green leaves you see are all new growth out from the spring buds. Without leaves the tree would die, but this 'autumn sprouts' won't be able to grow and harden long enough to develop new spring buds.
So the only chance for this tree, come new spring, will be to grow new sprouts without buds. Many trees can do that, I don't know if a chestnut can.
But anyway, at some time in the near future the inevitable will happen - this tree most likely will die. Trees don't live forewer, as most things do.
