NATURE'S CALENDAR 



October 2 



the meadows and river remind me of 

 the opening of a vast flower-bud. They 

 are the petals of its corolla, which are of 

 the width of the valley's. It is the flower 

 of autumn, whose expanding bud just be- 

 gins to blush." 



The universal greenness of plants is 

 due to the presence of a complex pigment 

 called chlorophyll, the varying abundance 

 and mixtures of which give the diversified 

 greens of foliage. It is most abundant 

 and important to the plant when it is 

 growing and putting forth its leaves vig- 

 orously in the spring ; and, after the plant 

 has accomplished its duty of flowering, 

 the leaves grow duller in color because 

 the chlorophyll has begun to be absorbed. 

 This goes on until finally, when autumn 

 comes, all or most of the chlorophyll has 

 disappeared from the foliage and her- 

 baceous stems, and has been trans- 

 formed into something else in the plant. 

 Along with it, however, other color- mak- 

 ing materials form a part of the cell sap. 

 One of these is tannin, present in all 

 plants, especially in woody ones, and giv- 

 ing rise under the influence of growth and 

 chemical influences to a class of pigments 

 called anthocyans, which furnish a range 

 of purple, red, and brown tints. When 

 the green chlorophyll disappears these 

 other colors show themselves in the foli- 

 age, and their varying intensity, mingling 

 and changing under the chemistry of sun- 

 shine, air, rain, and frost, furnish the 



October 3 



