A Little Bit About Leaves

Leaves are EVERYWHERE!... oh wait, never mind, it's winter and they're all gone. Why are they there one moment, and gone the next?

Let's talk about autumn for a minute, shall we? Autumn is the season where all of the

trees shed the leaves they grew over spring and summer. These leaves fall to the ground throughout all of Autumn, leaving all of their beautiful colors strewn about within a very large radius of themselves, which is why this season is also known to many as "Fall". But wait a minute, why do they shed their leaves? Don't they need them for breathing or something? Well yes, they do. But once winter hits, if those leaves are still there, it could seriously damage, or even kill the tree. Trees shed their leaves as a tactic of survival through the winter. 

How does shedding an essential part of the tree keep it alive? That doesn't seem to make any sense at all. Well you see, each and every one of those leaves contains water and energy given to it by the tree at some point and time. Once the temperatures start to drop and winter draws closer, the tree absorbs all of the energy from those leaves to sustain itself throughout the winter. You could almost consider the color of the leaves as an indication of the energy left in that leaf. If the leaf is green, there is energy that can still be taken by the tree. If it's orange or yellow, the tree has already begun to drain the energy from the leaf. Once the leaf has fallen off by natural means, it has little to no energy left to provide for the tree.

But a leaf "leaves" its tree for more than one reason. When the leaves have fallen off, it's easier for the wind to carry pollen from the tree to other nearby trees to pollinate. And leaves are actually considered a great fertilizer once they've decomposed into the earth.

 

There are some trees that don't lose their leaves during winter, such as the maple or the cypress tree, which are known as evergreens. Other trees that don't shed their leaves during winter tend to be in tropical climates where the temperature never drops low enough to harm a tree with the leaves still intact. An example of this type of tree could be the palm tree, which generally has no need to shed its leaves due to the warm climate it tends to live it.

Obviously there are leaves on plants other than trees, but do these plants generally go through the same process as trees?  Technically speaking, yes. Take a look at the mint leaves in this image. There isn't a tree that supports the mint

leaves and sheds them when winter is near, so how does the plant protect itself? During the winter, the mint plant, like many other plants, stops any of its procedures which require water and removes water from their cells to keep  those cells from bursting when the water freezes. It keeps itself in a stasis, much like trees do, throughout all of winter. Once the temperatures start to rise again, the plant will start up all of the processes that require water, and carry on the same cycle it had before winter had started.

So there's a few fun facts about leaves, and what they do for their respective plants. If you'd like to learn a few more fun facts about trees or plants, visit treespeak101.com. To read an interesting article on what you probably didn't  know about apple seeds, head on over to HubPages