Why Do Some Plant Leaves Turn Red in Autumn?

The reason why leaves are green is because they contain chlorophyll. In addition to green pigments, there are also many pigments such as red pigments and yellow pigments in leaves, but the quantity is very small. In autumn, the green pigment slowly fades away, and the red pigment and yellow pigment are exposed, making the forest golden or fiery red, very beautiful.

 

Autumn has arrived, and the leaves in the mountains and fields turn into beautiful colors in a blink of an eye.

 

Why is that?
Originally, in summer, the leaves worked very hard, but when the weather turned cooler, they stopped working. The nutrients produced by leaves cannot be delivered to branches and trunks, but settle in the leaves. The chlorophyll in leaves can also be destroyed, mixing with nutrients left in the leaves or withered tea brown, thus turning into various beautiful colors.

 

Why do autumn leaves change color
All leaves contain green chlorophyll, which trees use to capture light energy and store it in the form of chemicals such as sugar with the help of other substances in the leaves. In addition to chlorophyll, many leaves also contain other pigments such as yellow, orange, and red. Although these pigments cannot undergo photosynthesis like chlorophyll, some of them can transfer captured light energy to chlorophyll. In spring and summer, the content of chlorophyll in leaves is much richer than other pigments, so leaves appear green with chlorophyll and the color of other pigments cannot be seen.

When autumn arrives, the days shorten and the nights lengthen, causing trees to begin shedding their leaves. Before shedding leaves, trees no longer produce large amounts of chlorophyll as they do in spring and summer, and existing pigments such as chlorophyll gradually decompose. In this way, as the chlorophyll content gradually decreases, the colors of other pigments will gradually appear on the leaf surface, and the leaves will appear yellow, red, and other colors.