20 Brilliant Fall Facts and Autumn Curiosities

Remember that time you and your cousin’s new girlfriend discussed the weather for 15 solid minutes? You used so many synonyms for "brisk" that night. With all due respect to sweater season, there’s a better way. This awkward-pause-ending batch of trivia is your next dinner party’s secret ingredient; you’re guaranteed to bring something new to the table, and it will be delightfully odd.

The waning daylight and dipping temperatures we associate with the end of summer and the onset of fall are also signals for deciduous trees to cut back on producing chlorophyll. That chlorophyll is responsible for the leaves’ green hues, and as it wanes, their brilliant carotenoids — the red, orange and yellow pigments that also color everything from flamingos to lobsters — are unmasked.

If Google searches reveal our desires, it would seem that pumpkin-scented pillars are Americans’ overall favorite. National search data for November 2020 through November 2021 revealed that pumpkin led searches in nine states (vanilla was the top pick in eight states, and lavender, lemon and rose tied for third place with three apiece).

So-called decorative gourds have long, functional histories on this continent. Historians report that for centuries, indigenous people (and the colonists who joined them in North America) have hollowed out and hung the hard-shelled fruit around their dwellings to attract birds. That manmade welcome was so effective that most purple martins in the eastern U.S. now rely on humans to create their homes.