How do red leafed maple tees preform photosynthesis? Chloroplasts are green so do they not have them? Or are they just a different color.
In: Biology
Quite simply, red leaf trees still have clorophyll. They just have an abundance of anthocyanins that make them appear red when we look at them, but they still perform photosynthesis with the contained clorophyll like any other green leaf trees would. In fact, if your plant a red maple in a shaded or darker area in your yard, the leaves don’t appear as vibrantly red, but more of a dark muddy color, because the tree has to produce more clorophyll to perform photosynthesis, and more of the green light is reflected (along with the already present anthocyanins reflecting red light), and as we know red + green light is a muddy brown. For the brightest most vibrant red color to your Japanese Red Maples, plant them in full sun, so they can survive with minimal clorophyll.
Maple leaves are normally green most of the year. Like most deciduous trees, they lose their chlorophyll every fall (allowing the other colors already in the leaf to be exposed). This happens right before the leaves drop for the winter. During this time, they are incapable of performing photosynthesis and the tree is actively dissolving the connection between the leaf and the branches. The tree will then effectively go dormant for the winter.
Chlorophyll reflect green and transmits red. If you take a bottle of it and shine a flashlight on it, the side with the flashlight will look green, but if you look through the other side, you will see red.
This is because chlorophyll is good at absorbing certain frequencies of light that center around green colors. What is left over is the reds that do not get absorbed by it.
You get a similar effect with some plants.
You’re right. Chlorophyll absorbs red and blue, which leaves green light behind. So if there’s a leaf with strong red color, it can’t have much chlorophyl left in its cells.
The reason this happens with red leafed maples is that they can’t keep their leaves in winter. Therefore, they draw valuable nutrients from their leaves during autumn – and this process turns them red-yellow-ish. All northern decidous (leafy) trees do this, but maples have particularly intense colors.
[Now there are actually trees which have dark red color](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Blutbuche-ffm001.jpg/1280px-Blutbuche-ffm001.jpg) during summer. But that just means that there is an additional pigment in the leaves, which absorbs light that is not absorbed by the chlorophyll.
Edit: Apparently, red leaf maples also have [red flowers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/2015-04-12_16_31_55_Male_Red_Maple_flowers_on_Bayberry_Road_in_Ewing%2C_New_Jersey.jpg/1280px-2015-04-12_16_31_55_Male_Red_Maple_flowers_on_Bayberry_Road_in_Ewing%2C_New_Jersey.jpg) in spring, so they’re not just red in autumn. European maple trees have [yellow](https://www.die-honigmacher.de/kurs2/bw_largescale/Acer_campestre_07_3.jpg) flowers instead.
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