...unfortunately, these days we're REtoxing at too fast a pace for her to keep up...

This is from a book entitled "The Secret Language of Life", by Brian J. Ford. I found this to be fascinating.. :)

"In Autumn, deciduous trees shed their leaves in a blaze of yellow, red and russet. The phenomenon is seen as a way of ridding the tree of it's unwanted, dying leaves. We are taught that the reasons behind the phenomenon of leaf-fall are to help the tree survive winter. The main functions of the fall are said to be:

the removal of dying leaves
shedding diseased, damaged or old leaves
the removal of superfluous foliage from trees that are overburdened
defoliation of deciduous trees
recycling of mineral nutrients
protection of the tree, for instance by the formation of leaf scars
vegetative propagation(the growth of new plants from shed leaves)
facilitation of seed dispersal by animals
inhibition of seed germination through substances leaching from shed leaves

We have seen...that plants are far more complex in their behavior than most people might recognise, The same is true of this phenomenon of abcission(leaf-fall). The abcising leaf is always described as "senescent" or aging; indeed the yellowing leaves of Autumn are designated in the scientific literature as "senescent leaves". Let us now look inside, to see what the plant makes of it. The key indicator of senescence is approaching death: the metabolic rates slow down until they cease altogether. This is, most emphatically, NOT what happens to the yellowing leaves. Their metabolic rates INCREASE. Activity in the cells changes, but its rate does not diminish. Many of the essential elements(such as chlorophyll) are broken down and translocated elsewhere in the plant. These are raw materials being put into store. Meanwhile, other compounds -many of them brightly colored- are synthesized in the leaf. Waste material from the plant are systematically passed out into the leaves, ready for shedding. Levels of heavy metals and other toxic materials in the leaves increase dramatically. In some cases, poisonous metals increase a thousand-fold before the leaves are shed.

This is no senescence of the leaves, but a coordinated metabolic process. We all know that a plant uses its leaves to gather sunlight, and to evaporate water. Here is a further mechanism. The plant uses its leaves to excrete waste products to the outside world. The autumnal trees which we always dismissed as simply dying down for winter are actually in the throes of new, hidden activity. Those bright hues are the result not of the death of the vegetation, but of the plant actively using its leaves to package its wastes and dispose of them...

...if we harness this mechanism we have a way of decontaminating soil through phytoremediation. Metal-tolerant plants, grown in polluted ground, will pass those metals selectively to their leaves prior to asscission...

If we are wise, we will harness these proclivities to help us restore areas of the globe that are pollutede by the activities of human industry. Until then, let us look with respect and understanding at our plant neighbors. They are cleverer than we think. "