Fall colors are starting to pop up in Pennsylvania. Here's how to keep track of the colors of autumn.
For years, scientists have worked to understand the changes that happen to trees and shrubs in autumn. Although we don't know all the details, we know enough to explain the basics and help you to enjoy nature's multicolored autumn display.
Three factors influence autumn color — leaf pigments, length of night, and weather, but not quite in the way we were told as children. The timing of color change and leaf fall are primarily regulated by the increasing length of night. None of the other environmental influences-temperature, rainfall, food supply, and so on-are as unvarying as the steadily increasing length of night during autumn. As days grow shorter and nights grow longer and cooler, biochemical processes in the leaf begin to paint the landscape with nature's autumn palette.A color palette needs pigments. These molecules capture energy from sunlight to power the chemical reactions that convert water and carbon dioxide into sugars— photosynthesis.
Carotenoids, reflect orange, yellow and brown colors in corn, carrots, buttercups and bananas. The clear yellow of tuliptree leaves and the russets shades of oaks are due to carotenoids. Anthocyanins give red, blue and purple colors to cranberries, apples, grapes, berries, cherries, and plums, depending on their acidity. They are water-soluble and dissolve in the fluids of leaf cells.
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