Trees get naked once a year.
Their clothes aren't blown off.
Their clothes don't come off because the cold.
We get used to seeing leaves fall in the winter especially when the wind blows right?
That is not actually the case. The leaves are falling because the trees are doing something really extraordinary.
According to Peter Raven, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden and a renowned botanist we should actually be calling Fall/Autumn "Get off me" Season.
1. What happens to leaves in the winter?
Leaves help trees photosythesize sunlight to help create food for the trees however if the leaves stayed on the trees during the winter then the leaves would eventually freeze and die causing the trees to be holding dead weight.
2. What choice do trees have?
Trees have a choice of whether they want to keep dead weight on them during the winter or to get rid of them to have new leaves to help them create new food during the next summer season. Even if the trees kept the leaves on themselves till the summertime, the leaves would still be dead and it wouldn't have the space to create new leaves.
3. How do trees "cut" off their leaves?
What happens is as fall approaches trees can feel the cold wind on their bodies and they create hormones which they send down to their branches which causes cells to form. These cells are like "scissors" which start building a wall between where the leave meets the branch and starts pushing away the cells belonging to the leaves away from the branch.
There you have it! I learned something new today. Which I've never thought about or have known before, but hopefully I brought a nice piece of new information you now know as well.
