Nature’s annual autumn show is being spread out in the canyons for your viewing pleasure.
Whether or not you’re accustomed to taking the family on a pilgrimage into the canyons to see the fall colors, we urge that you do indeed make it a point to see nature’s handiwork.
When the color intensity will peak and how long the mountainsides will continue to blaze with their coat of many colors is problematical. A wave of extreme cold could cause the colors to fade quickly.
What causes the coloration in this lndian summer period? A botanist from Brigham Young University explains these factors:
-Various pigments are present in the leaves all the time, but the green of the chlorophyll tends to mask out the presence of the yellow and orange pigments. When autumn comes, either through drought, cold, or age of the leaves, the chlorophyll dies and pigments show through.
-As for the red coloration, one of the pigments, the water soluable anthocyanin, comes forth in increased abundance in the fall, bringing forth the red tints in the leaves.
-Trees have affinities for different pigments. For example, the maples take to the reds; the aspens the yellow. Sometimes many of the aspens have been known to take on a reddish-orange color as well as the yellow. This was especially evident last year.
In any case, we’d suggest that you load the family in the car and take a trip “up the canyon” soon. We have one of nature’s best shows right here in Central Utah and we hope it plays to a full house.
SO THEY SAY:
“The federal bureaucracy has become like the third curse of Moses — a suffocating plague of frogs, brought forth from out of where they belong into the villages and the very houses of the people.”
–Former Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina.
“If the unions are really concerned with food prices, they can stop some of the featherbedding practices of those very unions that jack up the prices. When I hear the loose talk about how we have to shut off the shipments to Russia, I get a little ticked off.” –Agriculture Secretary Earl L. Butz, on a refusal by some longshoremen to load grain shipments to the Soviet Union.
“The free enterprise system is the foundation of our economy, the rock upon which we have built our earthly kingdom” –Secretary of the Treasury William Simon, addressing a Junior Achievement conference.