Famed for its white truffles, the Motovun forest appears to be uniformly green in spring and summer. The colors start changing in late summer or early autumn. Looking down from the town, the greens, yellows, and reds seem to be evenly mixed at first. But the picture is different now, at winter’s threshold. There are two colors only, and they cover large and irregular patches of the forest: light green and greenish brown. The greenish brown trees predominate, but the light green ones are noticeably taller. I spotted this change only today, as I was coming out of a café with a friend who had lived here for more than a decade. “Of course,” he said with a touch of well-deserved pride, “that’s poplar and oak.” Poplar must be light green, but I did not dare ask. Too obvious, I guess.