What season is the maple leaf?

Red maple leaves appear in autumn and green maple leaves appear in spring and summer. In addition to ornamental maple leaves, the sap in its stems and leaves can also be used for cooking, seasoning and making sweets and sweets.

The reason why the maple leaves turn red:

All leaves contain green chlorophyll. Trees use chlorophyll to capture light energy and store it in the form of chemicals such as sugar with the help of other substances in the leaves. In addition to chlorophyll, many leaves also contain carotene, yellow pigment, red pigment and other pigments. Although these pigments cannot perform photosynthesis like chlorophyll, some of them can transfer captured light energy to chlorophyll. In spring and summer, the content of chlorophyll in the leaves is much more abundant than other pigments, so the leaves show the green of chlorophyll, but can not see the color of other pigments.

When autumn comes, the days shorten and the nights lengthen, which makes the trees begin to shed their leaves. Before falling leaves, trees no longer produce large amounts of chlorophyll as they do in spring and summer, and existing pigments, such as chlorophyll, gradually decompose. In this way, with the gradual decrease of chlorophyll content, the colors of other pigments will gradually appear on the leaves, so the leaves will show yellow, red and other colors.

Friends who like maple leaves can go to Benxi, Liaoning Province, which is known as the "capital of maple leaves of China", to enjoy the maple leaves in autumn.