Fall

I took some photos of the leaves in my yard on Saturday.  The trees know by the amount of sunlight that it is time to hang it up for the season.  They quit making food to store for winter.   The yellows and orange color we see in the leaves were there all along but covered up by the green chlorophyll.  The red color we see in maples is from glucose left in the leaves.  The brown color is from tannin - a bitter waste product.  My oaks and hackberry trees must have a lot of tannin. I like the brown of the oaks better than the brown of the hackberry trees.  The hackberry leaves turn brown and wither or shrivel and then they fall to the ground which is not a pretty thing to view.  The apple tree leaves turn yellow before they fall.  I like to see the red or orange crabapples against the blue sky.  The basswood trees turn brown but they don't loose their leaves uniformly.  Basswood trees loose their top leaves first and then the bottom leaves.  Just like me, they take off their shirt first and then the pants.