Here is the appearance of the broken leaf at 48 hours, 24 hours and immediately after it was broken. I suspect this is about maxing-out what a ground-pounder can use in the field without a lot more study and practice. We all probably ought to be able to approximate this level of sign interpretation.
Jed Hart told his "Man Tracking" class that one could learn to look at a broken leaf and tell how long ago it was broken. This would certainly be a very useful skill when tracking a lost subject.
Here is what 24 hours in August will do to a broken madrone leaf. The changes to the raw edge are subtle, but distinct. Would you have been able to tell this?
