Blood of the Great Bear

In Autumn, Ursa Major descends from northern skies to pad along hardwood canopies, leaving them bright as he fades into dawn. According to American Indian lore, ancient hunters killed the Great Bear, and the carcass bled on maples, sumacs, dogwoods, sweetgum, blackgum, sassafras and the like, staining them crimson. When the hunters cooked his flesh the dripping fat stained yellow the leaves of such trees as aspens, birches, hickories, elms, beeches, cottonwoods and willows.

This explanation is no more fanciful than the currently popular notion that autumn leaves are tinted by freezing temperatures. Foliage is dulled, not colored, by Jack Frost. Reds are brightest when sunny days are followed by cool (but not freezing) nights. Under such conditions, sun-made sugars are trapped in the leaves where they form the red pigment anthocyanin. Leaves that appear yellow in fall are not less so in spring and summer. It's just that the yellow pigments -- carotenoids and xanthophylls -- are masked by the green pigment chlorophyll, which breaks down with diminished sunlight. Find maple leaves that are still green and tape black paper over parts of them. Shielded from sunlight, these parts will turn yellow, while exposed parts turn red.

The Tidioute Overlook in Warren County offers some of the first views of fall foliage in Pennsylvania with a clear sightline of the Allegheny National Forest and Wilderness Island.

Text courtesy of Ted Williams' Wild Moments; photos are from the WPC archive. Visit the fallinPA web site to find peak times for autumn leaf watching throughout the state.

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