quotations about leaves
We take it for granted that plants have green leaves for photosynthesis, but green vegetation may be a reflection of the solar spectrum on the Earth. Our sun is a G-class (yellow) star, which emits a peak spectrum in the visual range. Additionally, the Earth's atmosphere has a significant effect on the light reaching the ground, making it ideal for plants to absorb in blue or red. What if we discover a habitable planet around a different star? NASA and CalTech have already looked into this possibility. On a planet orbiting an F-class (yellow-white) star, which is somewhat hotter than the sun, photosynthesis will most likely concentrate on blue and green wavelengths, because that's where the energy peak will be. Leaves there will reflect mostly in yellow, orange, and red. It would be "fall" year-round, at least based on the coloration of Earth's vegetation.
STEVEN SPENCE
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"Autumn Leaves: Last, Loveliest Smile", Got Science, October 27, 2015
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As seasons unravel ... I muse that, even though the tree has lost its leaves, it may be haunted by the memory of their warmth.
JADE CUTTLE
"A plate of poetry, please: Leaves and lovers", Varsity Online, May 23, 2016
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Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, we have had our summer evenings, now for October eves.
HUMBERT WOLFE
P.L.M.: Peoples, Landfalls, Mountains
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I saw the sunlight in a leafy place,
Bathing itself in liquid green and amber--
Where every flower had tears hid in its petals,
And every leaf was lovely with the rain.
ERNEST RHYS
"April Romance", The Leaf Burners and Other Poems
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So bright in death I used to say,
So beautiful through frost and cold!
A lovelier thing I know to-day,
The leaf is growing old,
And wears in grace of duty done,
The gold and scarlet of the sun.
MARGARET ELIZABETH SANGSTER
"A Maple Leaf"
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The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer,
Kisses the blushing leaf.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Woods in Winter"
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Ah, the pretty whisperers! It was very well
When the leaves were thick and green, awhile ago--
Leaves are secret-keepers; but since the last leaf fell
There is nothing hidden from the eyes below.
SUSAN COOLIDGE
"Secrets", Verses
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Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.
MARTIN LUTHER
attributed, The Lutheran Witness, 1935
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Happy, happy, happy for all that God hath done,
Glad of all the little leaves dancing in the sun.
ALFRED NOYES
Drake: An English Epic
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A gust of wind rattles the window, and I look out. Leaves are whooshing all over the place, flying past horizontally as if they have engines of their own.
KATE MESSNER
The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z.
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Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods,
And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt.
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
"Autumnal Sonnet", Day and Night Songs
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One skeleton-leaf, white-ribbed, a last year's leaf,
Skipped in a paltry gust, whizzed from the dust,
Leapt the small dusty puddle; and sailing then
Merrily in the sunlight, lodged itself
Between two blossoms in a hawthorn tree.
That was the moment: and the world was changed.
With that insane gay skeleton of a leaf
A world of dead worlds flew to hawthorn trees,
Lodged in the green forks, rattled, rattled their ribs
(As loudly as a dead leaf's ribs can rattle)
Blithely, among bees and blossoms. I cursed,
I shook my stick, dislodged it. To what end?
Its ribs, and all the ribs of all dead worlds,
Would house them now forever as death should:
Cheek by jowl with May.
CONRAD AIKEN
"Dead Leaf in May"
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Autumn is a season of desperate hopes. The leaves are souls begging to turn life on pause. Begging to stop, begging to take a break, hiding under smiles and childish words.
TEODORA SAVU
Listen to the Leaves
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There is not a single leaf which is a mere ornament; all contribute to the fruitfulness of the earth, and the support of its inhabitants.
CHRISTOPH CHRISTIAN STURM
Reflections on the Works of God and of His Providence
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And the wind is rising squally and loud
With many a stormy token--
Playing a wild funereal air,
Through the branches bleak, bereaved, and bare,
To the dead leaves dancing here and there.
THOMAS HOOD
"The Forge", Poems of Wit and Humour
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Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
EMILY BRONTË
"Fall, Leaves, Fall"
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Do you know why the leaves change colour?... Before a tree sheds a leaf it pumps it full of all the poison it can't rid itself of otherwise. That red there--that's a man's skin blotching with burst veins after an assassin spikes his last meal with roto-weed. The poison spreading through him before he dies.
MARK LAWRENCE
Emperor of Thorns
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The leaves do not change color from the blighting touch of the frost, but from the process of natural decay. They fall when the fruit has been ripened and their work is done. And their splendid change of coloring is but their graceful and beautiful surrender of life, when they have finished their summer offering of service to God and man.
TRYON EDWARDS
Light for the Day
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I love the chill October days, when the brown leaves lie thick and sodden underneath your feet.
JEROME K. JEROME
"Silhouettes"
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As fall the light autumnal leaves, one still the other following, till the bough strews all its honors on the earth below.
DANTE ALIGHIERI
The Vision; or Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise
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