girino on Nostr: well, being a nerd, i couldn't stop myself posting this... do you know why some ...

well, being a nerd, i couldn't stop myself posting this... do you know why some plants have redish or putpleish leaves instead of green ones? well, Chlorophyll will absorb the light in both ends of the visible spectrum (red and purple) and convert it to "chemical energy" inside the plant (mostly glucose, and other sugars). So they reflect the green light, which is why we seem them green.

But some plants grow smaller than their counterparts in the same habitat, and all the red and purple light is absorbed by the taller trees and plants, so they get very little of that light, all that's left for them is the green light. Those plants evolved their Chlorophyll to "feed" on the green spectrum, ehich is all they have left. Because of that, they reflect either the red or the purple, making their leaves redish or purpleish.