As autumn comes and goes, a change in the colors of the leaves can be seen. Leaves that were once bright green change to a variation of reds, browns and oranges and eventually drop from their branches. Why does this occur you may have been wondering? It is simply the tree’s way to hibernate for the winter. During the spring and summer, trees undergo photosynthesis so that they can gain energy. This process is done through a series of steps but the tree basically absorbs sunlight, oxygen and water and converts it to glucose, which it uses as food. Once the fall approaches the trees begin to prepare themselves for hibernation such as many other animals do. The trees do this by extracting the chlorophyll (which is produced though photosynthesis) from the braches and storing it in the trunk, thus supplying them with a food source for the winter. This process is a lot harder to conduct during winter. By doing this, trees are taking away the food from the leaves thus causing the leaves to die and fall off. But this is not why they change color, they change color because the chlorophyll is taken away and without chlorophyll they would not be green. So the reason behind the colorful display is just the way trees hibernate!
