The red leaves of Fragrant Hill in Beijing are mostly the smoke tree. When deep autumn arrives, the round leaves turn from green to yellow to red, hillside after hillside catching fire, seen from afar like sunset clouds resting on the mountainside.

Smoke Tree and Red Leaves

The smoke tree is not tall, usually a shrub or small tree, with round, obovate leaves like little fans. In high summer it is unremarkable—simply green, thickly and solidly.

Its strangest moment comes after flowering: the stalks of many sterile flowers lengthen and redden, spreading over the branch tips like smoke and mist, a haze of pink-purple floating above the crown—hence its other name, the smoke tree.

— Tang Dynasty · Wang Wei, “In the Mountains” —

The Jing Stream shows its white stones;

the weather turns cold and red leaves grow sparse.

Why Fragrant Hill Turns Red

Fragrant Hill’s red leaves are the smoke tree. When deep autumn arrives, the round leaves shift from green to yellow to red, hillside after hillside catching fire, seen from afar like sunset clouds resting on the mountainside.

The smoke tree loves light, tolerates drought and poor soil, and often grows in sheets on limestone hillsides—Fragrant Hill’s soil and aspect suit its temperament exactly, which is how the city came by its most famous patch of autumn color.

The Character Lu and Its Timber

In ancient times the character lu (栌) meant the bracket that bears weight atop a column. Seeing the wood as tough, the ancients made wheel rims and tool handles from it, and used it to support roofs—inside the tree’s name hides an old wooden implement.

When Wang Wei wrote that the Jing Stream shows its white stones and red leaves grow sparse in the cold, he was writing the open, spacious quality of deep autumn in the mountains. Red leaves are not better for being denser—when they thin, the stones and streams reveal themselves.

• How to know it: Leaves obovate or round, smooth-edged and entire; after flowering, the sterile stalks lengthen into plumes of pink-purple smoke—its most recognizable mark.
• When to enjoy: April–May for flowers and smoke; late October for red leaves; December for the sparse, clear silhouette of branches.
• How to view: Red leaves are best seen as sheets from afar, and veins up close—when sunlight passes through, the leaf margins are reddest.

Uses in the Human World

Today it serves chiefly as garden accents and hillside greening, its autumn color irresistible; drought- and poverty-tolerant, it is one of the few barren-hill species that is both useful and handsome.

Its timber makes implements, its twigs yield dye, and its roots and branches enter medicine to clear heat. A mountain tree with an assignment for every part, from leaf to root.

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Keywords: Fragrant Hill red leaves · smoke tree · deep autumn · limestone hillsides