The Colours of Autumn

I love autumn and one of the reasons is the variety of colours that can be seen. I just love walking in woodlands marvelling at the colours that our beautiful planet provides. As a result of this I was excited and inspired by a graphic produced by compound interest. They had put together some information about the pigments that are found in the colours of autumn leaves. This set us a challenge: we were off to find as many of the different colours as possible.

Searching for Leaves in Trench Wood

Sycamore Leaves

We decided to go for a walk in a woodland just outside of Worcester called Trench Wood. Whilst autumn is not in full swing it was clear that there was plenty of different colours present in the trees. This meant that it was not long before we had a full set of autumn colours. It is incredible how many different colours there actually are. However, compound interest talked about 4. First of all you have the green colour of the summer. This is as a result of the chlorophyll, which will absorb the red and blue wavelengths of light and reflect the green. The leaf will use this energy to carry out the important process of photosynthesis.

Trench Wood

Beach

Woodland Clearing

As we move into autumn the leaf will break down the chlorophyl, so the leaf no longer looks green. What is left behind are some of the other pigments that have been present all year but hidden from view due to the abundance of chlorophyl. There are chemicals such as β-carotene (orange) and Lutein (yellow) and many more. As the leaves continue to break down reds and purples can be seen. These pigments are formed by the reaction of sugars contained in the leaves and sunlight. Once all the different chemicals of the leaf have been decomposed we are left with a brown dead leaf.

We walked around the woodland collecting as many different leaves as we could. It was amazing the variety of tree species that were present. This clearly helps increase the biodiversity of the woodland in general. The abundance of wildlife was very visible. It was certainly helped by the warm sunshine as there were lots of insects: hornets, hoverflies, bees and a total of 4 species of butterflies. We also had a very close encounter with a Roe Deer. However, as I went to take a photo I disturbed it and it ran off into the undergrowth, maybe next time.

Comma

Our Collection of Leaves

Some Autumn Craft

Looking and Photoing Fungi

Mushrooms