Enjoying Autumn
Fall must be the most beautiful season in Georgia. Everyday, everywhere I look, the colors are just so festive. The range of the colors on the trees are nothing short of amazing – from burgundy, to red, orange, yellow, lime, bright green, to green. These are the original colors of the leaves – each tree with a different color. In the spring, chlorophyll turns the colors of these green for making some form of sugar (from sunlight). In the fall, when the trees have made enough sugar and go into hybernation, the chlorophyll disappears and the original colors of the leaves appear again. I wonder what the evolutionary reason for the different colors might be.
Having spent so much time in California, I feel I missed out on this earlier. When I was in upstate New York for college, by the time the semester started in late September, it was pretty much winter! And when we were finishing our finals at the end of the spring semester, the first bloom of the year was appearing – just when I was heading out for the summer. All the leaves in the front yard (see photo) are from the last day – we had removed all the leaves yesterday morning. They fall all day, like snow. This explains why Autumn is also called Fall. I am glad it has not been rainy, otherwise all the leaves disappear within one rainy day – as happened last year.
