For anyone who grew up in the northern hemisphere, temperate climate, forested area, this time of year can be nostalgic. If there’s one scene I miss, it’s the colored leaves of autumn. Like most people growing up there, including this writer from Ireland, I believed that “There are no true deciduous trees in the tropics.”
So what’s this, then?
It’s not a dead tree. It’s a tree that has dropped its leaves.
I read here and other places about “tropical deciduous broadleaf forests,” but it’s very general. From the reading I’ve done so far, many tropical trees do drop their leaves in anticipation of the dry season.
The biology of how trees drop their leaves in temperate climates is well studied, but I’m having a hard time finding information on the biology of tropical trees dropping their leaves. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I’d greatly appreciate it.
Hi,
Tropical deciduous trees shed their leaves in summer to prevent loss of water through the leaves. These trees are common in India.
Hope this helped.
Thanks swagata!
A couple of years after I wrote this post, I did accumulate some more information on tropical deciduous trees and wrote about it in a post called Deciduous Trees in the Tropics. Conserving water during the dry season was definitely one of the reasons I found for tropical trees losing their leaves. So, thanks for your comment and for verifying that piece of information.