Stripped Bark

I didn't know crape myrtle trees do this. It looks like they shed their skin at the end of summer. All of them had strips of barking hanging from their branches and on the ground around their trunks.

We usually visit these trees in the winter at Jindai Botanical Gardens. Then they are bare of leaves and their branches and trunks look smooth and slippery. Crape myrtle is called "monkey slip" (or slide) in Japanese. These photos were taken September 10th.