This snippet from State Rep. Dan Ugaste reminds me of something my wife picked up on the internet:

Fall color season gets closer

With the coming of autumn, Illinois will soon be starting up its fall color season and adjacent round of autumn festivals. 

The Illinois Tourism Board’s Enjoy Illinois website will operate its fall color map showing different sections of Illinois and the color conditions in each section.

The map differentiates between Northern Illinois, Central Illinois, and Southern Illinois.

Not only the dates but also the colors differ from region to region, and even from county to county.

• In the McHenry County area, cool evenings and dry weather have started yellowing black walnut, cottonwood, and honey locust in many places.
• The Red and sugar maples have been starting to turn red and purple.
• Sumac is changing to a deep red.

Different soil conditions encourage trees of different species, and some broadleaf trees and shrubs generate brighter colors than other.

In Illinois, a shrub called the smooth sumac often produces bright red roadside leaves.

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What I learned for the first time is that the true color of leaves is their fall color.

This explains it:

“Leaves get their brilliant colors from pigments made up of various color-creating molecules.

“During the warm, sunny months, plants use their leaves to turn sunlight into food energy, a process called photosynthesis.

“This primarily uses a pigment that reflects green light, which gives the leaves their characteristic color.”