How Trees Meet the Seasons
A maple tree can look like a different plant in each season. In spring, tiny leaves unfold. By summer, they form a broad green canopy. In fall, the leaves change color and drop. Through winter, the branches stand bare. These changes help the tree handle shifting temperatures, sunlight, and water supplies.
Spring: Growth Begins
As days grow longer and temperatures rise, many trees begin a period of active growth. Buds that formed earlier open, releasing new leaves or flowers. A bud’s outer scales have helped protect the delicate tissues inside during cold weather.
New leaves allow the tree to make more food through photosynthesis. In this process, leaves use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide from the air to make sugars. The tree uses some of these sugars for growth and stores some for later. Roots take in water from the soil, and the trunk carries it upward to the leaves.
Summer: Gathering and Saving
During warm months, a leafy tree can capture plenty of sunlight. But its leaves also lose water through tiny openings called stomata. These openings let carbon dioxide enter, but water vapor escapes through them.
- canopy:
- The covering formed by a tree’s leaves and branches.
- delicate:
- Easily damaged or harmed.
- tissues:
- Groups of cells that make up parts of a living thing.
- conserve:
- To save or use less of something.
- pigments:
- Substances that give things color.
- absorb:
- To take something in.
- species:
- A group of living things that share important features.
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Preview questions from this passageShowHide
- 1What is the main idea of the passage? Give two details that support it.
- 2How do longer days and warmer temperatures affect trees in spring?
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About this report passage for Upper Elementary
“How Trees Meet the Seasons” is a report reading passage about Tree Adaptations, written for Upper Elementary. It takes about 3 minutes to read (511 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.