---

ATTLEBORO - Don't blink, or the foliage season might pass you by - at least in this area.

If this fall's turning leaves appear to be less vibrant and a bit earlier than usual to your eyes, you are not alone.

For the second straight year, autumn foliage is turning out to be a little drab.

But unlike last year, when the color show was later than usual, this year it is happening sooner and within a shorter span.

And it is not much of a spectacle at all. It is all due to the dry, unseasonably warm, sunny weather of August and September, tree authorities say.

"Looking at my own area, which is always colorful, I don't see it coming this year," Wrentham resident Maureen Osolnik said of any spectacular foliage. "The leaves are already falling off. They are drying up, curling up. It's terrible."

To add insult to injury, that likely will mean annual leaf raking chores will kick in sooner this fall.

"The dry conditions are really bad. I think a lot of trees are stressed beyond belief," said Osolnik, a former longtime Wrentham conservation commissioner who helps oversee a tree advocacy group in town. "I just am hoping a lot of them are going to recover. I'm looking at some maples around me. I don't know if they are going to come back. They are losing leaves like mad."

Cooler weather helps turn the leaves colors, but by the time the first frost hits, it may be too late.

"From what I observe walking around, there aren't a whole lot of leaves" remaining on trees, said Osolnik, a resident of the rural west end of Wrentham. "The dryness is just taking a toll."

The warm weather further sucked out what little moisture there was in the ground, drying the trees out even more, she said.

"I don't recall it being this dry in a long time, especially this late," Osolnik said. "Usually by now we would have had some rain."

Only 1.58 inches of rain fell in August, less than half the normal amount. September had 2.16 inches, about half the usual amount for the month, according to the Attleboro Water Department.

As for temperatures, recent highs in the 80s tell the story of a fall that is more akin to summer. One day in late September hit an unheard of 91 degrees. That was among the first five days of fall, when temperatures were running about 20 degrees warmer than what they should have been.

"Swamp maples and others generally have a lot of brilliant colors," Osolnik said. "Nothing has happened yet. I don't see it happening."

Acorns and fruit are big this year, however.

"These trees think they are dying. They are sending out seed like crazy," Osolnik said.

Others also point to the sad state of foliage this fall.

"It is dead. The leaves don't have the color they usually have. They are very brown," said Betty Koshivas, co-owner of Fairmont Fruit Farm in Franklin. "The hot and dry weather. The colors are not as bright and vivid as other years.

"And they are falling earlier, about a week earlier," Koshivas added. "We have trees that are almost completely bald."

At Northland Farm and Garden Center in Wrentham, manager Darcy Muir paints a slightly more optimistic picture.

"It hasn't done anything yet," Muir said of the foliage. "Once we get a good rainfall, and once a cold spell hits, it will probably zap us with color, but it probably will be fast."

Weaker trees are turning yellow, Muir said, and "doing an early drop. It is just going to turn and drop."

"There is less color, and I think it is a little more sparse," agreed Jack Looney, professor in the earth and ocean sciences department at the University of Massachusetts.

There are two schools of thought on why, Looney explains.

First, he said, "The warm weather and shortage of rainfall, and we haven't had many cool nights."

Another group ponders if this is another "example of a global warming trend, or is it a normal blip in the climatic cycle," he said.

Foliage varies across Massachusetts, Looney said, because the state has four distinct climate zones where temperature and rain differ.

Last year, trees had enough water and warm weather and held their leaves longer, but wild temperature swings confused trees, and fungus and caterpillars were prevalent this year.

Two years ago, the area had a late and dull foliage because of warm weather and lack of rain.