With September finally here, the yellow, orange and red hues of fall foliage will soon make an appearance, signalling the coming of the autumn and trees preserving their energy each year.
Fall foliage appears when leaves change from green to yellow, orange, and red, then falls from the trees, said Brandon Fuller, a doctoral candidate and lecturer in the biology department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Sometimes, leaves even turn purple, notes the Chicago Botanic Garden.
As trees become dormant, they store chlorophyll, the chemical that gives their leaves their green color.
“When the plants are going dormant for the wintertime, they actually want to hold onto that chlorophyll because it's energetically demanding for them to produce,” Fuller told USA TODAY.
The trees store the chlorophyll in their stems during the winter, and reuse it when they grow new leaves, Fuller said.
