What do mittens and autumn colors have in common?

Well, it is, and it isn’t about the cold.

Colorful Autumn Mitten

Throughout most of the year, leaves sport a green color due to the powerhouse known as chlorophyll. Chlorophyll allows plants to do something that humans can’t do; produce their own food. In fact, we depend on chlorophyll to generate most of the food consumed by all living things.

So, if you think of chlorophyll as a green mitten on top of a red mitten, on top of a yellow mitten, you can start to understand where our fall colors come from. As chlorophyll starts to die, triggered by changes in light and temperature, the colors beneath have a chance to shine.

Cool nights and warm, sunny days create the best conditions for fall colors. The sugars produced in the leaves during the day can't move out due to the cool nights and closing veins, which leads to the production of anthocyanin pigments that create colors from crimson to mahogany and all the purples in between. 

Yellow and orange pigments, known as xanthophylls and carotenoids, also become more obvious as chlorophyll breaks down and draws the leaf-peepers north for the sugar maple show. Different trees produce different amounts of these pigments, therefore creating the waves of color that make up an autumn display. Red maples have more anthocyanin and sugar maples have more xanthophylls and carotenoids.

Autumn Leaves

I’d like to share a lovely story I found that I call “Mama Science for Wee Ones."

Please read below:

I'm going to explain it the way my Mom did when I was actually five. It's the kids version, but I always think of it this time of year. Growing up in New Hampshire we had "leaf peepers". They were what we called the retired folks from Massachusetts who came to take pictures of trees, covered bridges, and moose, all while trying not to drive into any trees, covered bridges, and moose. So being a five year old that liked stories, my mom would tell me that all leaves work really hard all year making oxygen to breath and the fall months were to celebrate the ones who worked the hardest. The colors were like medals and the brighter and more vibrant the tree, the better they did that year. I remember pointing trees out with her and saying, "that one did really good this year!" So that's why the colors would change and why so many people would come around to take pictures. They were there to find the best trees.

Sometimes the best we can do is wonder and marvel and celebrate this beautiful world we live in. Now go take a hike and enjoy it!