Have you ever wondered how and why a fall leaf changes color? We first have to understand what leaves are and what they do.
Plants are the world's food factories. Plants take water from the ground and take CO2 from the air. Plants use sunlight to turn water and CO2 into glucose(葡萄糖). Glucose is a kind of sugar. Using it as food, plants get energy and grow. Plants using sunlight to turn water and CO2 into sugar is called photosynthesis (光合作用). Chlorophyll helps photosynthesis. It gives plants their green color.
As summer ends and autumn comes, the days get shorter and shorter, and trees "know" to begin getting ready for winter. During winter, there is not enough light or water for photosynthesis. Trees rest during this time and live on the food they store during the summer. They begin to shut down their food﹣making factories. As the green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves, we begin to see yellow and orange leaves. These colors have been in the leaves all the time. We just can't see them in the summer, because they are covered up by the green chlorophyll.
The bright reds and purples we see in leaves are made mostly in autumn. In some trees, glucose is caught in the leaves after photosynthesis stops. Sunlight and the cool nights of autumn turn this glucose into a red color. The brown color of trees is made from waste left in the leaves. It is mixture of all these things. It makes the beautiful leaves during autumn.
