The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-12-23
PERIODIC BUDDING
OF TREES, FALLING
LEAVES EXPLAINED

1t is the poets who have taught us
to remember the falling leaf as an
emblem of decay and death, but there
is no warrant for such an idea of ma
ture When the yellow leaf is caught
by the autumn gales and swirled far
from its parent tree, or gently borne
to earth by the heavy dews, the pro-
cess is but the prelude for new &C
tivities, says Mark Meredith, in st.
Nicholas.
AS the leaf lies upon the ground,
myriads of microbes seize upon it and
hasten its disintegration. What is
of value is absorbed by the soil and
goes to form the nourishment of
plant and tree that will blossom anew
when spring returns. Here is no sad
or useless death, but a living process
that makes more for life.
But what of the tree, shorn of fits
summer glory and now stretching its
gaunt arms toward an inhospitable
sky? Why must leaves fall? Nature
is a wise mother and makes no blum
ders with her children In the early
days of spring the mysterious sap,
so full of life-giving properties, be-
gan TO creep upward. Gradually it
spread to every branch and every
twig, till it finally reached the opened
leaves.
Pause Must Come
The food that had been held in solu.
ton had been already taken up by
the tree, and the leaves received the
moisture not to keep, but to pass out
into the air through the narrow open
ings in their upper and uunder sur
faces. But this supply of sap could
not go on forever. The source of
supply would fail, the roots would be-
come exhausted by their task, so there
must come a pause. To leave the
tree fulfil of sap exposed to winter
frosts would be to court disaster; as
water freezes in the pipes and bursts
them, so would the sap freeze in the
branches and split them.
Accordingly, as the summer wanes,
the tree begins to make ready for its
annual rest All that is of value in
the leaf is withdrawn, and, in the
process, the green coloring matter is
changed to permit the formation OF
the gorgeous autumn tints. The sap
sinks down into the branches and
stem, to be stored in the roots and to
keep the tree alive during the long
winter days when no nourishment is
being taken from the ground.
Prepare for Separation
The leaf is now no longer of any
use in its original position, and the
tree has already prepared for the in
evitable separation. A double layer
of cells, called the separation layer
has been slowly formed between the
leaf-stem and the branch, till at las
it is complete, and the supply of sal
effectually cut off. The leaf begin:
to dry and shrivel up, and the con
nection between the leaf-stem anC
branch is so weakened that the gen
TEST pressure brings about its fall.
When this happens, the cell laye
divides, one sheet of cells remaining
TO heal the wound that would other
wise be left in the branch while tn
other flutters to earth attached t
the leafstem.
1t is curious TO note that some tree
which lose their leaves in one Ian
are ever green in others. For exam
pie, the leaf Of the plane-tree doe
not fall in Greece with the adven
of winter, because there the climati
conditions are such that there is
plentiful supply of moisture all tn
year round So. too, the peach is a
evergreen in the GASES of the Sahar;
and the elder on the southern shore
of the Black Sea.