Have you heard about the Autumn Fairy? She dresses up in the red, yellow, green and golden colors of autumn, has white wings and has a magic wand that glows in the dark. But tell me, as autumn arrives, does she magically makes plant change colors or does she just enjoy the magic of plants changing colors on their own? Let’s explore!!

All leaves look green to us. But the fact is that inside the leaf there are millions of packets of yellow and orange color hidden somewhere. Then, you might ask that why don’t we see other colors everyday?

Here is why. Leaves are green because of chlorophyll. Whenever there is plenty of sunlight, there is so much chlorophyll in the leaf that the green hides every other color.
So we just can’t see these colours in summers.

But when summer ends, the sunlight gets lesser than before. The green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves. As a result, the bright green fades away. This is when we begin to see yellow and orange colours that were hidden earlier. Ending of summers is also beginning of autumn, therefore we relate changing of leaf color with autumn.

Reds and purples that show up on autumn leaves are not the hidden colors of the plant . In some trees glucose is trapped in the leaves after food making process stops. Cool nights of autumn make the leaves turn this glucose into these colors.

Well this makes me think that autumn fairy just enjoys the magic of plants and uses her magical powers somewhere else!!

Did you know that autumn in some countries is also called fall.