LADY BUG: REGION'S FALL COLOR SPECTACLE COULD BE AMONG THE BEST

The brilliant reds of sumac, dogwood and sweet gum. The oranges of sugar maple and sassafras. The mellow yellows of birch, walnut and tulip poplar. These are the stars of the color show that runs every autumn.

And this year abundant rain has resulted in lush tree growth. With just the right conditions, this fall's color production could be nothing short of spectacular.

If you think the conversion of a plain green leaf to a harlequin design of red, orange and yellow is miraculous, visit the library and delve into the chemical processes that account for the change. It is a continuation of successive miracles.

Foliage changes color for a variety of reasons, but botanists, naturalists and foresters are quick to push Jack Frost and his legendary paintbrush out of the tree.

Frost has little to do with the beautiful reds, browns, golds, oranges, scarlets and yellows that start transforming America's hardwoods in early autumn. In fact, frost and early freezes that strike trees still green often kill the leaves, turning them brown instead of their customary brilliance.

Some trees just drop their leaves -- no color, just dry brown leaves. In this group are black walnuts and sycamores. The latter start dropping their big, maple-like leaves, sometime in the middle of summer. This year many leaves came down from trees while the leaves were still green.

Hickory trees are now turning yellow or bright bold, and persimmon trees are dull orange. Sassafras trees are covered with yellow-orange mitten-shape leaves.

The first leaves to show fall colors are sumac, then the dogwood turning from green to red, also with their seed pods resembling red berries. Tulip poplar and sweet gum also change to yellow. A favorite is the ginkgo with its clear, bright yellow leaves that all fall in one day, a beautiful sight to see floating gracefully to the ground.

Last are the oaks, the scarlet, red, black, pin and white oaks which are red while the shingle, blackjack, chestnut and willow oaks are in the yellow shades. All the mixtures of these in reds, yellows, purple and green are a delightful combination of colors.

In addition to trees and plants that add fall color, those that hold green color late into the fall provide contrast to the brilliant colors. A few such trees include the Japanese pagoda tree, magnolia, English oak, willow, linden and some of the many varieties of flowering crabapple.

Shrubs are also sources of fall color. The winged euonymus, also called burning bush, is one of the most spectacular. Leaves of this plant develop a rose-pink to brilliant red color that is unique into autumn.

Barberries are plants with both colored leaves and fruits. The Japanese barberry produces red berries and orange-yellow to red foliage. After the leaves drop off, berries hold well into winter. Reddish purple is a common fall color in many plants but not as brilliant or outstanding as other colors. Some shrubs providing this color include abelia, silky dogwood, cotoneaster, purple-leaf wintercreeper, forsythia, mahonia, and some viburnums, such as the Korean viburnum and the nannyberry.

Decreasing daylight as the fall days shorten starts the leaves turning. Trees gradually stop producing the plant hormone auxin, causing corky cells to grow at the base of the leaves, plugging the circulation links with branches and trunk.

The colorful pigments are in the leaves from the time they sprout, but during spring and summer, which is the growing season, the green pigment called chlorophyll, takes over and is busy making plant food sugars by the process of photosynthesis.

When the growing season is over, the chlorophyll dies out, and the warm yellows and reds take over. The days grow shorter and the sunlight is not so strong as it is in the summer. The nights get cooler and usually it is dryer, and there is not as much chlorophyll made in the leaves.

Sooner or later the leaves may get tired of all this change because they give up and start coming down. For even a stouthearted man with a rake this can be an awesome episode, because a 60-year old shade tree can bury a lawn under 35,000 leaves.

But the inventor who has failed to come up with grass that will not grow tall enough to mow has also failed, so far, to develop a tree that will not drop its leaves.

~Mary Blue is a resident of Cape Girardeau and is an avid gardener.