Plants with new foliage that's flushed purple are, I see, somewhat of a continuing theme for me. Yes there are the usual (but still lovely, still welcome) purple leaves of early-Spring peony clumps. And I've posted on Clematis recta 'Midnight Masquerade'. And I've "Maxed" on Catalpa x erubescens 'Purpurea' here. Wait until you see poliothrysis.
I'm returning to Chinese tulip tree today because of the rain yesterday. The matte finish of the leaves holds the rain, and even causes it to bead. And the dusty-to-dark shades of purple only highlight the light refracting in the beads. What a show!
The acid-lime-green bits at the base of each of the leaf-stems—there's a smoldering cluster of them at the center of the picture; click for the full excitement—are the leaf-bud scales that protected the nascent leaves through the winter. Even after each leaf is fully launched in the new season, the scale hangs on, adding it's electric note.
What a thrilling contrast with the purples of the newest foliage, as are the purple-fading-into greens of the older foliage ("older" being relative in that none of the leaves is more than a few weeks old: it's only May, and the tree didn't start leafing out until well into April). I have a trio of Chinese tulip trees, which I prune informally to maximize their interest in branching out and thereby creating more new purple-passioned foliage. (Plus, the pruning keeps the trees small enough that I can easily keep up the pruning. Even I'm not manic enough to attempt a twenty-foot specimen whose new tips needed to be pinched with a pole pruner.)
As long as everything is reachable from ground-level, or from a short step-ladder, when it comes to Chinese tulip trees, more is SO definitely more.

Being flushed with color is, at least in my garden, the real intrigue of Spring. Flowers? We know about flowers. Children know about flowers; I too was stunned at a red tulip when I was three.

But foliage? That's for adults. And foliage that is flushed?  For sophisticated adults, like all of us dabbling in Dirt.
Here's my very-young Chinese chestnut. It's still a yard-high stick, gawky and scrawny. But even with just (let me count) twenty-four leaflets to its entire "canopy", the promise of major excitement is confirmed. Yes, it's clearly chestnut foliage, but in Spring these chestnut leaves are a beefy red instead of the usual native-American green.  And they shoot up from exploded-back deep-pink leaf scales.

Whooee this is a display of my-way-or-the-highway confidence.  No lambs and chicks here; this is Spring as a slap, not as some fluff.