Ural scientists are surprised that despite the onset of cold weather and snowfall, the trees forgot to shed their foliage. Green leaves in the snow are observed by residents of Yekaterinburg and the Sverdlovsk region.
For 40 years of my scientific activity I see such a picture for the first time. Note that almost all deciduous trees have remained green and still have not shed their foliage. This is an extremely strange event. Usually, closer to autumn, a special belt forms on the leaves, the cell dies off and the leaves fall off, but this did not happen. There was not even a general change in color from green to yellow, says Sergey Maksimov, an employee of the Botanical Garden of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Scientists do not know the reasons for this anomaly and suggest that the reason may be insufficient moisture in the soil. This summer in the Urals, summer lasted from April to early September, and there were no rains in July and August, which were very hot, and the trees did not have enough strength to move to the autumn phase.
According to scientists, this anomaly can lead to the fact that in the spring the branches of trees that have not thrown off their leaves will die.