I was walking up the rue Vaugirard today when I spied this tree in the Luxembourg Gardens. The photo doesn’t do it justice; the tree looks like it’s consumed by frozen fire. Marvelous! I love Paris in the autumn, but the rain — it rains almost every day — does wear one down.
Clare Krishan says: What a divine irony – that’s a common American tree – a sumac (a weed, pervasive in urban blight) seen here earlier in the season
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandelabra/1296264029/
Its name derives from arabic – French specimens could have been introduced from the Mediteranean basin, Morocco perhaps?
Google image listing of fall color sumac
http://www.google.com/search?q=fall+color+sumac&tbm=isch
Elli says: I do believe that’s a sumac. If Europe wants fall color, American trees and Japanese maples give the really flaming colors – most European trees run to yellow and brown.
Beyng says: If I’m not mistaken, that’s a sumac tree, and they grow in almost every interstate median in North America. In fact, they’re so prevalent that they’re generally considered something of a pest–like a giant dandelion. I can see several from my window.
Don’t let your Francophilia blind you to the beauty of home 
Rod Dreher says: Hey, we don’t have sumac trees where I come from! Can’t I just delight in the unexpected beauty of a tree in a garden without it being taken as a commentary on France versus America? Autumn foliage is the thing I miss most of all about living in more northerly latitudes.
scotch meg says: Enjoy the leaves! Sumac here in Boston tends to bright red. That lovely orange/red color tends to be on the maples. A few years ago, you were asking about New England in the fall. That bush is your answer. I’m so glad you got to see it in Paris, which you love so much.
cameyer says: Don’t feel bad, Mr. Dreher. If I were there in the Luxembourg Gardens, taking in that wonderful site, I’d turn my ipod to Edith Piaf and loose myself in the grandeur of, admittedly, my own cliche. You will never see that color reproduced by man.
Clint says: Nobody told ya about the poison sumac.
http://0.tqn.com/d/landscaping/1/0/K/D/poison_sumac_yellow_pink_fa.jpg
Charles Cosimano says: Clearly there is something in the Parisian air that rots the brain. It’s a damned weed.
“This is what you do on your very first day in Paris. You get yourself, not a drizzle, but some honest-to-goodness rain, and you find yourself someone really nice and drive her through the Bois de Boulogne in a taxi. The rain’s very important. That’s when Paris smells its sweetest. It’s the damp chestnut trees.”