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OK Chris, as you started a thread specifically mentioning people not supplying critiques, I'll let you be on the receiving end of one of mine <g>.
I like the overall effect, and the muted colours suit the subject. However...
The bottom half is uniform in tone, and the top isn't. I find the tonal differences in the lighter area particulary catch my eye and lead me away from the main subject. (Especially the darker band that comes in from near the top left).
For a basically diagonal composition, I think it would have been stronger with the upper leaf placed more to the right, to follow the line of the stalk on the lower one.
In nature, nearer objects are usually more brightly coloured and less influencved by haze etc. I therefore find the darker leaf unnatural in this context. Lighter would have been more in keeping.
The white halo around the leaves (particularly to the left of where stem joins leaf) catch my eye far too much.
The shadows may be natural but the angles and positions look unnatural (and I know that often natural looks unnatural, and I can post examples if I had to; but here I'm looking at an image, and to borrow from Magritte, this is not a natural leaf - it's an image of one. I don't think given that photography distorts nature in any case we should slavishly attempt to follow nature when it makes for an inferior image. I know many photographers disagree. And I think that they are wrong <g>).
I don't usually refer to other comments first; I disagree about the sharpness aspect. The parts that matter to me are sharp.
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