The color science of leaves in a western New York park is focus of RIT Press book

Black oak, crabapple, crimson maple—a color scientist finds inspiration in the woods in the new book Munsell Trees: A Season of Leaves and Colors, published by RIT Press.

During 2021, author Mark Fairchild photographed 37 trees in Mendon Ponds Park, a 2,500-acre National Natural Landmark near Rochester, N.Y. The naturalist and scientist regularly collected leaves from the same trees. He photographed the leaves and compared their appearance to color samples in the Munsell Color Book. Fairchild features 24 of the trees in his publication.

Munsell Trees combines the author’s deep interest in human perception and nature with observations from 19th-century American writer Henry David Thoreau and art educator and inventor Albert Henry Munsell. The latter developed the Munsell Color System and the Munsell Color Company and strove to improve color education.

For nearly 40 years, Fairchild has taught at Rochester Institute of Technology. He is a long-time faculty member of RIT’s color science Ph.D. program and Munsell Color Science Laboratory. The world-class facility was established in 1983 with funding from the Munsell Color Foundation Inc.

Munsell Trees: A Season of Leaves and Colors is available in hardcover with 216 pages and 6 black-and-white and 145 color illustrations. To purchase a copy, go to RIT Press.