Autumn, the most colorful season of the year in the temperate areas of the world. Autumn is called as “The Fall” season due to fact that falling of leaves in this particular season.
Reason for the colorful Autumn
What is the scientific scenario behind this mind blowing colorful change?
Let’s go and find out “What why and how?”
The temperate countries that have moderate temperature and lie between the” Sub-tropic region” and the “Polar Regions” get very cold and get short day time light in the winter. Thus, trees cannot ‘feed’ enough and can’t survive due to circumstances. Hence, the tree prepares itself for this by taking all the useful things from the leaves before they fall. This process causes the leaves to display yellow, brown, golden bronze, orange, red and purple-red, crimson, light tan.
Why these different colors?
Normally, most of the trees have green leaves because they contain the well-known “chlorophyll pigments” which is used to energy from convert sunlight into glucose, the energy source for trees. During summer chlorophyll is constantly placed in the leaves. When it gets cold, the plants stop producing chlorophyll and breaks down into small molecules. While this break down trees can reuse the nitrogen in the chlorophyll molecules. causing the color-changing before they fall off the trees.
Where these all colors come from?
The green color chlorophyll is so strong that it masks any other pigment. The breaking down of green pigments let the other colors come through. Those pigments called carotenoids; Xanthophylls (yellow) , Carotenes (orange) and Anthocyanins (red).
