Arkansas Fall Foliage Tours Ozark Mountains, White River, Bull Shoals area

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Ozark hillside near Mountain Home, Arkansas

Ozark Mountains Foliage Fun Facts
photos and article by Gary Cooley

The Leaf - An Amazing Little Chef
Leaves are highly specialized little chefs cooking up healthful meals for the entire tree. The sun is their oven, their raw ingredient supplier is the sap bringing minerals absorbed by the roots. Carbon dioxide, absorbed from the atmosphere through the leaf, is the mixing bowl. Sap, the ever-present worker, is also the faithful waiter carrying away the fresh-baked delicacy and serving it to all the tree's hungry woody cells. Foliage results when the kitchen shuts down for the season. And just how it shuts down determines the foliage display quality.

The chef needs a lot of help. It takes a lot of food and thousands of gallons of water to grow a few inches of wood every year. Chlorophyll, with its green pigment, makes up the majority of the kitchen production staff, and thereby gives the leaf its predominant green color. Other worker chemicals are also present with more specialized tasks, but not as high of a percentage as chlorophyll. There are the carotenoids, which are orange and yellow in color. The orange and yellow color is present in the leaf all year, but you can't see it because they are masked by the predominant green of the chlorophyll.

Chlorophyll absorbs energy from the sun and uses it in transforming carbon dioxide, soil nutrients, and water into carbohydrates such as sugars and starch. As long as there is enough rain, sunlight, and soil nutrient, the tree grows and stays healthy. However, when fall rolls around, its a whole new game.

pond in pasture with Ozark foliage
Clearings are found mostly along highways

Colors Change When The Kitchen Closes For The Season
The chlorophyll gang does not like cool weather or a lack of sun. They're a sandy beaches kind of crowd. So when days start getting shorter and temperatures start to drop in proportion to diminishing sunlight levels, the chlorophyll gang starts closing the kitchen down for the season. Falling chlorophyll levels trigger a chemical reaction that forms special cells at the point where the leaf is attached to its twig. These cells start to grow in cool weather and within two weeks or so they completely pinch off the sap flow. Once they have completely sealed off the leaf from its twig, the leaf falls. But prior to this point, the kitchen is a blaze of final activity.

Ozark foliage and highway
Highway 341 outside Norfork Village, Sylamore District

Going Out In Style - The Creation Of Great Color
As the green chlorophyll fades away, the underlying yellows and oranges of the carotenoids begin to show through. The reds and yellows of the chemicals carotin and xanthophyll appear in many leaves. Tannis creates the deep browns and mahogany seen in the oaks.

It is a common belief that abundant rain in the summer makes for great fall foliage. True, it helps. But it takes more. A great fall foliage display requires sunny fall days and cool nights. It takes nighttime temperatures consistently falling to around 45 degrees Fahrenheit, followed by clear sunny days with temperatures no warmer than 70 degrees Fahrenheit, to produce good color. Why?

Most of the sugars and carbs are made in the leaf during the day in the dwindling fall sunlight. But cool nights prevent movement of sugar through the leaves into the branches. From the sugars trapped in the leaves, red pigment called anthocyanin is formed. But if the weather is cloudy, little sugar is produced because there simply is not enough sunlight. And if the weather stays warm, what little sugar is produced flows out of the leaf at night. The result is no trapped sugars to turn color in the leaf. Colors end up brown, or muted, not brilliant. Warm, cloudy fall weather wrecks any chance of spectacular displays!

Ozark Mountains in foliage on highway
Ozark National Forest, Sylamore District, near Farris Creek

Last Call for the Season
As the weather continues to cool, the special cells in the base of the leaf stem continue to squeeze off the flow of sap to the leaf. Additional chemicals forming within the leaf become trapped, and the foliage display peaks. The chemicals carotin and xanthophyll, along with tannins, continue to create various colors within the leaves. Which chemicals, and how much of each, varies from tree species to tree species, hence the various colors produced by each tree. Reds and browns show in leaves with trapped tannins. Crimson and yellow appear in leaves with trapped carotin and xanthophyll. The same chemicals can create different colors in different tree species. You know how chefs always have to fiddle with the seasoning! (Sorry, couldn't resist)

wooded lane in Ozark forest
There are 100's of miles of Ozark roads like this one at Caroline Gap, Baxter County

How to Bust A Great Party
An early hard frost kills leaves before they have had a chance to complete the final fall shut-down. The icy dew we call frost does not, in and of itself, cause color change. Its the cold temperature associated with a frost that starts the process. But a hard frost, or too many nights of frost, kills those special cells squeezing the leaves off the branches. The chemical change inside the leaf cannot be completed. Early hard frosts are total disaster for fall foliage displays. Hard rains will also destroy foliage. The color-bearing chemicals within the leaves are water soluble. Therefore heavy rains not only knock the dying leaves off the tree, but also wash out most of the color. What early frosts, warm cloudy weather, and rain don't destroy, high winds will. Like so many other events in Nature requiring perfect conditions, grand foliage displays are a result of just plain luck.

foliage deep in Ozark forest
Understory Foliage

Who's The Fairest Of Them All?
Ozark Mountains forests, like most enchanted forests, are comprised of tall species forming the main canopy, with shorter understory trees growing beneath. In the Ozarks, both taller trees and understory growth produce colored fall foliage. Some 200 different tree species grow in the Ozark Mountains, over 300 in all if counting the hybrids. The hawthorne family is the largest with 63 different species. There are 49 species of oak, 23 species of hickory, 16 of maple, and 12 of basswood. Common Ozark commercial timber species are pine, oaks, gums, elm, hickory, pecan, sycamore, hackberry, ash, beech, maple, cedar, and walnut. Now out of all these kinds of trees, how do you, or can you, pick a favorite color?

high up in the Ozark Mountains
Ozarks offer hundreds of square miles of unbroken foliage

Showing Their True Colors
The colors on the same tree may vary from year to year. Hardwoods sporting yellow through orange foliage are sweetgum, sugar maple, red maple, silver maple, and sassafras. Trees producing brilliant red and crimson are typically red and silver maples, flowering dogwood, redbud, red oak, blackgum, and swamp chestnut oak. Trees producing purple foliage will typically be sweetgum, blackgum, and certain oaks. Which trees are the favorite? Which produce the most spectacular color?

As always, it will depend on which trees happen to receive that magical combination of rain, sunlight, soil nutrients, cool nights, and a kitchen crew that does not take off too soon.

Ozark foliage at dusk
Sylamore District, Ozark National Forest, Baxter County, Arkansas

Patterns In The Hills
It is not unusual to see a long line of foliage running through a ridge top, in a valley, or along a stream bed. Like most ecosystems the Ozarks have widely varied soil types, moisture levels, and temperature zones. Each tree species has a preferred environment, and they'll soon take over an area matching their ultimate growing conditions. Oaks tend to do best on north facing slopes, in ravines, and in smaller stream valleys. Since the Ozarks are one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world, and since they have been worn down over that long time frame, and because slopes face all possible directions, the number of different growing zones is amazing. The result is unusual species like the blue ash, the river birch, and the gum bumelia. So it can be very difficult to identify a particularly beautiful foliage display on a single tree.

highway through Ozark Mountains with foliage
Miles of roads with light traffic are common

Foliage Is Mostly An American Phenomena
As a general rule of thumb you can tell the native trees from those brought here from Europe. Trees introduced from Europe do not display any spectacular foliage colors. They simply go from green to brown or tan, and the leaves fall off. The only other parts of the world other than North America that greet cool fall weather with brilliant colors are Japan, China, and Korea. However, this general rule does not always hold true for a few native oak species. These oaks just up and turn a boring brown color. But when examined up close these brown leaves reveal their amazing tough, plastic-like composition.

Foliage displays can be as short as 4 or 5 days, or as long as 10 to 12 days. There is a "fade in" and "fade out" period where certain trees change before others, as well as trees which turn later than most. Trees turning early can give clues to what the over-all display may present.

panoramic view high up in Ozarks
Wide-open vistas like this are also common from roads

Risk Analysis - What's The Chances Of Great Foliage?
Ozark fall foliage is, like fall foliage anywhere else, a very unpredictable event. As we discussed, many factors determine when, how much, how long, and how grand the display will be. Planning ahead for a fall foliage vacation can be a gamble if you try to hit it at the peak. But if that is what you want to shoot for, be sure to check in DAILY on our foliage report, and be prepared to travel on a few days notice.

Try not to focus on just the peak. The best way to enjoy the fall foliage is to arrive just prior to peak. Once peak has hit, one good rain or wind, and it can be gone in a few hours. More than once I have been setting up my camera to shoot a glorious hillside of color only to have it disappear before me in a strong wind. ( I have this thing about photographing foliage with dark storm clouds for a background so I have been out in several foliage-wreaking storms.) If you arrive sooner, you will still get plenty of color as you enjoy driving, fishing, hiking, canoeing, and other area activities.

Fortunately, the Ozark tree species are diverse enough, the growing zones varied enough, that you'll be sure to catch plenty of color regardless of whether you make it for the peak or not. You may end up enjoying small groups of trees in display, or perhaps you'll enjoy understory foliage presented by the dogwoods and the redbuds (which also have spectacular spring blossom displays before their hardwood neighbors leaf out). We'll keep you posted on foliage progression with our foliage reports. Fall is an excellent time to fish, hike, and otherwise enjoy the outdoor Ozarks.

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