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California isn’t typically known or recognized for its fall foliage. If you’ve been to Vermont and the Northeast U.S., you’ll understand why people seem a little jaded when it comes to the colors red, yellow, orange and green. Nature puts on one amazing spread each fall season, providing a favorite travel time for what’s known as leaf peeping (watching the fall foliage colors.)\u00a0 California has its own fall foliage to see, and for those with an appreciation of nature, our leaf peeping season is spectacular, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains<\/a>. What weather is needed for good color? The best autumn colors occur under clear, dry, and cool conditions but not freezing weather. Here’s the California Fall Foliage map<\/a>\u00a0 (scroll down to see).<\/p>\n In a process in which leaves turn green each spring as they use pigments (chlorophyll, xanthophyll, and carotenoids) to harness the sun’s energy, as temperatures cool and days get shorter, leaves on deciduous trees stop producing new chlorophyll, and the familiar green color breaks down to reveal the other pigments that have been masked all season. Chlorophyll is expensive to make (for the tree); so when there isn’t enough light to make it worth expending energy on, the green fades and the colors beneath show.<\/p>\n What Colors Do Leaves Change to in a Variety of Yosemite\u2019s Tree Species?<\/strong><\/p>\n Quaking aspen: Yellow
\nDogwood: Red
\nNon-native sugar maple: Red
\nBigleaf maple: Bright Yellow
\nBlack oak: Orange\/brown to golden yellow
\nCeanothus\/Deer brush: Yellow
\nWhite alder: Yellow
\nBlack cottonwood\/Fremont cottonwood: Yellow
\nPoison oak: Red to purple
\nPREVIOUS: Know the Water Before You Go to California Beaches<\/a><\/p>\n