Marcescence Definition: Why Do Leaves Stay on Trees in the Winter?
You go for a long walk in the woods on a quiet winter day. And shouldn’t the leaves on the trees be gone by now? Photography by Joy Yagid. A stand of young beech trees at the forest edge offers an unexpected mid-winter sight: leaves still on trees. Marcescence is when deciduous trees hold on to most of their dead leaves until spring. Instead, they persist, wrinkled and brown, until new growth finally pushes them off the branches. A Japanese maple with marcescence after an ice storm. We are used to seeing bare trees in the winter in the northern part of the country, where deciduous trees lose their leaves in the fall. However in marcescence, the tree cuts off nutrients but the leaves do not separate from the tree. Red oak leaves hanging on till spring. Why does marcescence happen? No one knows for sure, but scientists have a few guesses. The withered leaves can both collect dew and direct rain to fall down within the drip line of the tree’s feeder roots. They are exactly what the tree needs, since it came from the tree.