Joy of not Googling

OR alternately it could be titled - Why I like paper books or Why I go to the library.

To wit - I have enjoyed many a fall color when we lived in Michigan for many years.  During the course of this stay, at the onset of autumn we drove about four hours north of the Detroit suburb where we lived to a place known as the Upper Peninsula.

For most Michiganders this was a seasonal must do.  The Upper Peninsula or UP as it was affectionately known is a largish bit of real estate, in fact about 30% of the state was the UP bordered by some of the cleanest fresh water on earth.  It juts out into three of the five large lakes otherwise called the great lakes.

The point I am getting to, believe me there is one in the end - is that the landmass here was mostly forested.  With some species of birch or the other, but predominantly featuring maples.  What happened in autumn or just as summer days turned cooler was that the leaves on these maples and other deciduous trees turned color.  Gone were the dark and light greens but suddenly you had flaming golds and ochres and orange.  Some went as far as making a point of turning dazzling red.  All of this lasted a brief week or two when eventually they all went to darkish brown and fell.  Hence the other term invented by Americans for this season - Fall.

While enjoying this natural phenomenon and taking pictures for posterity I never once dove into the biology or chemistry of it all.  I knew something was afoot since nothing happens just because.  But did not ponder longer other than being zen and taking it in.

Then last night as I went to bed with a copy of Bill Bryson's - 'I'm a stranger here myself',  Notes on returning to America after many years away; in hard cover I almost finished reading all 250 some pages of it before sleep came.

Buried in it somewhere was the answer to the question I had never asked.  Bill was extolling the virtues of the phenomenon in New England where he landed and made home in America.  That region is also known for amazing displays of fall color and Bill being Bill has gone to great lengths to describe the chemical activity in the tree that delivers this visual delight to those that care to indulge, apparently at no benefit to itself.  You see there is a process where the tree stops producing the green pigment called chlorophyll and instead proceeds to generate something called Carotene which provides the bright gold color to its leaves.  Some maples will keep at it and convert their energies to produce Anthocyanins which yield a bright red or even purple.

Once this is done the leaves will give up and simply drop off.  Until its spring and time to bloom again with a fresh coat of green.

Now Google for its wonder would never have given me this surprise and delight moment.  The hard cover did.  To that I am grateful.