The Best Pennsylvania Trees for Fall Color

In Pennsylvania, as the days shorten in autumn and the temperatures break, deciduous trees and shrubs prepare for winter dormancy. Prior to leaf drop, trees withdraw nutrients from the foliage in a process called resorption. These nutrients are stored in wood and roots over winter lying in wait for next spring’s flush of new growth.

Chlorophyl is a plant pigment that colors leaves green. It is also primarily responsible for the process of photosynthesis, the conversion of sunlight into tree food. As chlorophyl breaks down in autumn, the green color fades to reveal less-dominant pigments that also present in leaves; Carotenoids reflect yellow/ orange and the anthocyanins, red.

This annual biological process of putting up resources for winter creates a beautiful spectacle of color everywhere deciduous trees grow in the temperate regions of the world. Whether it is a couple of forgotten volunteer trees growing in an urban back alley or a pristine forested hillside, trees command our attention in fall.

I asked our arborist representatives for their top seven tree species for exceptional fall color, and the results are in!

We all agreed on:

• Sugar maple, Acer saccharum
• Black gum, Nyssa sylvatica

Most of us included:

• Ginkgo, Ginkgo biloba
• Sweet gum, Liquidambar styraciflua

Some of us listed:

• Red maple, Acer rubrum
• Japanese katsura, Cercidiphyllum japonicum
• Hickory, Carya sp.
• American hornbeam, Ostrya virginiana
• Japanese maple, Acer palmatum
• Flowering Dogwood, Cornus florida

Each of the following got one mention:

• Scarlet oak, Quercus coccinea
• Ash, Fraxinus sp.
• Persian parrotia, Parrotia persica
• Sumac, Rhus sp.
• Elm, Ulmus sp.
• White oak, Quercus alba
• Hawthorn, Crataegus
• Stewartia, Stewartia sp.
• Dawn Redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides
• Bald cypress, Taxodium distichum

This list of 20 trees covers a broad range of attributes, forms, and preferences. Of the top 10, six are native to PA, one, the Sweet gum, is native to areas south of us but performs well here, two were imported from Japan for the landscape. The ginkgo also called the fossil tree was thought to be extinct but rediscovered growing in China. The Ginkgo is the last species of its family and predates the emergence of all “flowering” trees. They likely grew here. That is if you can consider Pangea, the super continent in prehistory when all the continents of the world were smashed together and Dinosaurs roamed, here!