I did not know that about leaf colours..

As you know from my blog, one of the things I really appreciate in myself is the curiosity I have regarding things especially when it comes to nature. But there are times when I am really amazed about something, but somehow am not the least bit curious about how it originated or what it is. This may be in matters of nature or anything in general. So, it ends up surprising me (obviously :-D) whenever I later learn about it. And I usually wonder why I never even wanted to know about it to begin with. From now onwards, I have decided to put all such "discoveries" in posts labeled - "I did not know that" :-D. Here's the first of them.

I have gone through 5 autumns in the US, have written several poems about the same and told you how much I love it. So recently when I read why autumn leaves are the colours they are, I was really surprised. Because all these years, I never even thought of why they were (I just assumed it was in the nature of the trees). Anyways I'll not keep you waiting any longer. Autumn leaf colours like yellows, golds and oranges are the ACTUAL colours of the leaves. In summer they are masked due to the excessive production of chlorophyll (which turns the leaves green). In winter obviously trees due to the less sunlight, the chlorophyll is gradually stopped and hence the actual colour of leaves shine through. But in case of reds, pinks and purples, its even more interesting. These happen usually in trees that produce lots of sugars - in winter they need to suck all that sugar from the leaves and hence red pigments are produced to accomplish the same. So the red pigments don't actually exist throughout the year :).




More details with all the technical terms of the pigments here in Wikipedia :).