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Sugar Maples
in Full Color

What to look for:

Find a tree with leaves shaped like the one shown here.
There are five kinds of maple common in Minnesota: sugar maple, red maple, silver maple, black maple, and mountain maple. All maples have palmately-veined leaves (shaped like your open hand) and opposite branching. You can be sure the leaf from your tree is a Sugar Maple by checking its shape on this on-line tree key.

Report this event when you see that most of the Sugar Maple
trees are full of orange, yellow, or red leaves.

Watch in your neighborhood and around school. If your school is participating in the Fall Happenings Curriculum through Wolf Ridge, the first person from your school to report seeing a leafless sugar maple tree can have their name and the date posted in the list at the bottom of this page. If you think you are the first person, ask your teacher to submit your name. They will probably ask you to tell exactly what you saw and where it was.

Where do Sugar Maples grow?

Sugar maples grow in most of the Fall Happenings forested areas. They are common in the temperate deciduous forests, but occur only occasionally in the coniferous forests of the north near the Canadian border.

Why do leaves turn color?

If a tree grows in a place that turns cold and dry for part of the year, it will loose its leaves so it can make it through the winter without drying out. In spring and summer, water travels in thread-like tubes called xylem from the smallest the roots, through the trunk and branches, all the way to the leaves way up high. Remember tree roots can't "drink" snow and frozen water - winter feels like a cold desert to them. The leaves would freeze, dry out, and die.

So, what's a tree to do? Loose those leaves!

The bright red, orange, and yellow colors we see in fall come in several ways:

Leaves are green because of a pigment called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is incredible stuff. It makes life possible on this planet by helping plants make every speck of food that ends up in every living creature, including humans. Using chlorophyll to capture sunlight, plants combine water and carbon dioxide and change it into the sugar that eventually feeds us all.

The thing is that leaves can only make the green-colored chlorophyll when conditions are just right. And they need to make more each day because the chlorophyll is constantly breaking down and needs to be replaced. In fall, the leaves are no longer making enough chlorophyll to keep up, and eventually there is no more green color to be seen. That means we get to see all the other colors behind the green!

Chemicals Behind the Colors
Chlorohyll
Carotenoids
Anthocyanin
(acid soil)
Anthocyanin
+ Carotenoids
Anthocyanin
(basic soil)
Tannins

Tree color can also be affected by:

      • Genetics - trees are different colors, just like people
      • Spring weather - a spring drought can make fall colors duller
      • Night Temperatures - cool fall nights and sunny days make
        brighter reds in maples

Cool Facts

 Phytochrome seems to work by sending a signal to the tree that the nights are longer, not that the days are shorter.
While yellows are revealed when the green fades , reds and purples (orange leaves are a mix of red and yellow) are actually MADE in the leaf in fall. Sugar trapped in the leaf reacts with other chemicals to make the red or purple pigment anthocyanin.

Explore the Web

Do an experiment to soak the colors out of a leaf into a coffee filter.
Calling all chemists! This one is for you!
Kid-friendly general site from the Wisconsin DNR
See Wolf Ridge naturalist Kevin Zak's picture-a-day of the same Sugar Maple as it changed color in the fall of 2002.
General information about trees
Follow the screens to identify your tree.
Young Naturalists article in the Minnesota Volunteer. Teacher's Guide available

Learn more about trees in these Wolf Ridge classes:

Explore the world of plants! Learn about how plants live and grow, why they are so different, and how they are alike. How do plants and animals help each other? Depending on the season, you might also make foods, drinks, perfumes, or dyes from the plants you find. More about our Plant Study class.

You can also take the Trees and Keys class at Wolf Ridge. During Trees and Keys class, you will travel through the trees and keys course, visit trees and see how many you can correctly identify. At the end of class, you will receive a tropical forest tree seed to plant to remind you of the value of maintaining biodiversity.

Hike away from the main Wolf Ridge campus through the woods and across the boardwalks to our Forestry Building outpost. You'll pack a lunch and be gone for the day. During the Forest Ecology class, you'll hike through a variety of managed forests, getting a chance to do some forest management along the way, beginning with a try at an old-time cross cut saw, and ending by taking on the role of a forest, wildlife, recreation, or water management specialist.

Where are Sugar Maples in full color?

Sugar Maples are in Full Color in
School Town Date Observer Comments
Sawtooth
Grand Marais
9/10
Casey P. & Ailee L.
Congrats Casey and Ailee -- You're the first official Fall Happenings event observers!
Wolf Ridge
Finland
9/24
Carrie A.
You can find just about every color in the rainbow on the ridge right now.
Shell Lake
Shell Lake
9/25
Nikki S. & Amand L.
.
North Shore
Two Harbors
 10/1
6th grade class
.
St. Pascal
St. Paul
 10/3
Joan H.
.
St. Mary's
Morris
10/6
E &PS, CJ,TL, TF, EZ , JR
.
Northfield M.S.
Northfield
10/8
Sam W.
.
Our Lady of the Lake
Mound
10/9
Amy F.
.
Salk MS
Elk River
10/21
Mr. Kelly's 4th hour
Many trees still have their leaves yet, and some are still green.