Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 052155148X, Hardcover)

Who would have thought that plants behave like squirrels and bears? Yet many do, as we can tell by watching a tree's autumn colors arrive. The yellow and green pigments, carotenoids, are hidden by the green photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll; only when the deciduous plant retrieves this chlorophyll for winter storage do the lighter colors show through. You'll learn about this process, about why one bad apple can spoil a whole barrel, why the Amazon rainforest matters, and myriad other matters of plant life in John King's lively natural history, Reaching for the Sun. The text is technically dense but highly readable.