#plants

This morning I noticed the maple leaves outside my window catching the early light, and someone asked me yesterday why leaves are green. Most people think it's because chlorophyll likes green light, but that's exactly backwards.

Here's what's actually happening: chlorophyll absorbs red and blue light for photosynthesis and reflects green light. We see green precisely because the leaf doesn't use it. Think of it like this—if you're wearing a red shirt, it's red because the fabric absorbed every other color and bounced red back to your eyes. The leaf is green for the same reason: it's the light it rejected.

I tried explaining this to my neighbor using her garden hose. "When you water your tomatoes," I said, "the soil soaks up the water but some runs off, right? The plant is doing that with light—it drinks the red and blue, and the green runs off into your eyes." She paused, then nodded. That clicked for her in a way the textbook explanation never did.