beads and wax

it’s easy to think of this leaf as dead, but it has retained enough of its waxy living surface to turn water into beads of glass. there’s no lesson here. i’m not drawing any conclusions about life or death. but i’m suddenly very interested in why those droplets seem to scatter so evenly across the surface of the leaf. dammit i thought this was going to be an easy one. wikipedia here i come.

autumn oak leaf with raindrops