For anyone who lives in the oak-and-maple area of New England there is a perennial temptation to plunge into a purple sea of adjectives about October.

Borland wryly acknowledges how New England’s autumn landscape—especially the oak-and-maple forests at peak color—almost compels writers into lush, overripe description. The phrase “purple sea of adjectives” is a self-aware jab at the tendency to pile on poetic modifiers when confronted with October’s sensory abundance. At the same time, the line concedes that the impulse is understandable: the season’s brilliance can overwhelm restraint and make even disciplined prose drift toward rhapsody. The quote thus balances admiration for October with a caution about sentimentality and cliché in nature writing, inviting the writer to see clearly and choose language carefully.