Do you have a favorite season of the year? Difficult to decide, isn’t it? God is a God of beauty, and each season has its own unique landscape.
I’ve already tried to decide which month I Iike best. I’ve said more than once that I wish there were two Octobers. Why October? Because where I live in the mountains, the autumn leaves are gorgeous.
Not all of our trees change colors, of course. There are coniferous trees (needle leaf) such as pines, spruce, hemlock, and cedars, that stay green year-round. Deciduous trees (broad leaf) are the ones whose leaves change colors in the fall before falling to the ground.
Now we know that in the spring after being bare all winter, deciduous trees start pushing out nice green leaves. Green is the coloring from chlorophyll stored in the chloroplasts on the underside of a leaf. It uses energy from sunlight and carbon dioxide from the air to manufacture food the plants need. This food making process is called photosynthesis.
But leaves from deciduous trees can’t keep producing food all year long. Their broad leaves would catch wet snowfalls causing extra weight and injury due to the breaking of branches.
Trees need to prepare for winter rest. So as summer begins winding down into fall, the chlorophyll starts breaking down into smaller molecules. This enables us to see carotenoid pigments of orange and yellow.
Other pigments called anthocyanins accumulate in the leaf from a chemical reaction with left over sugars in the leaf. These pigments are bright red—even appearing purple in some trees such as oaks and dogwood.
You may be wondering why some years the leaves are not as vibrant. Weather has a lot to do with the coloration. Summer needs to have adequate rainfall or leaves will begin to change and drop off prematurely.
As the amount of daylight hours shorten, and the temperatures get cooler, leaves begin the final stages of depleting chlorophyll and showing their vibrant colors. Dry weather during this time also helps to make the colors more brilliant.
Trees in northern latitudes change before those in the South. This is due to less daylight hours because of the earth’s tilt, and the North getting less direct sunlight. Also, trees in higher elevations reach their peak of color before lower altitude ones due to cooler temperatures.
Where I live in the mountains, I can observe three peaks of coloration. Trees in the highest elevations often display their most beautiful coloration around the first of October. Mid elevation levels peak about the second week in October, and the lowest elevations nearer the third week.
Earlier I had mentioned about trees preparing for winter rest. When the chlorophyll breaks up, trees try sucking in as much nitrogen as they can from the leaves for the cold winter months. Also a layer is formed between the leaves and branches. This is an added protection for cold weather and causes the leaves to fall to the ground.
Thinking about the short life span of a leaf reminds me of what the Bible says about the brevity of life in comparison to God’s Word. “For all flesh is as grass, and the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away, but the word of the Lord endureth forever” (1 Peter 1:24, 25).