goodbye chlorophyll

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In spring and summer, leaves are green because of the pigment chlorophyll, but it doesn’t last. Chlorophyll also absorbs light energy from the sun and through a magical process called photosynthesis converts it to stored chemical energy.  

In deciduous trees it is seasonal, mirroring the major league baseball season. The green of chlorophyll also masks the orange and yellow pigments, carotenes and xanthophyll, that lie underneath in each leaf all along. 

Carotene is an orange-to-red pigment and xanthophyll is a yellow-to-brown pigment that occurs widely in nature. Carotene is also what gives carrots their color while beta-carotene gives many plants their health benefits.

Here in the temperate zone it's more efficient for broad-leafed trees to shut down photosynthesis in the winter to avoid freezing and moisture loss through the leaves. As October flows into November, chlorophyll breaks down revealing the brighter pigments beneath. That’s what we see in the leaves as they reach senescence and fall from the trees.

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