Leavings

As the hours of daylight decrease and the temperature drops, the deciduous trees prepare for their winter slumber. A thrifty lot, they break down what they won’t need and store that energy in their roots for spring. This includes chlorophyll, a pigment in the leaves that was busy all summer long with the process of photosynthesis.

With fewer hours of sunlight, the tree’s solar power factory is less efficient and so it gets packed away. When the chlorophyll goes, what is left are other pigments in the leaf: carotenoids and anthocyanin. These sources of the glowing oranges, reds and yellows of fall were there all along. They were just outnumbered by the green chlorophyll.

There’s a great metaphor in there somewhere.