Category Science

In temperate climates, a tree makes rapid growth in the warm spring and summer months and much slower growth in the autumn and winter. This growth shows in the trunk as a light ring during times of fast growth and a darker ring for slower growth. It is therefore possible to count the pairs of light and dark rings to see how many years the tree has been growing.

If you are curious about the year that a tree was planted, then you are in luck, as there is an easy way to tell! You may have heard of how to identify the age of the tree by the rings within its trunk, but what’s inside the trunk can even tell us about the conditions/environment the tree was exposed to for its full life cycle.  A tree may have experienced drought, excessive rain, fire, insect plagues and disease epidemics, injuries, thinning or air pollution.  This can all be told by the trunk of the tree.

The only way to see the rings on a tree is for the entire horizontal surface of the trunk to be exposed.  After cutting horizontally through the tree, all you need to do is count the dark rings and you’ll know the tree’s age! You can also gain insight into environmental conditions affecting the tree based on the appearance of the rings. The rings could have some alteration to their shape, colour, and thickness.  For example, narrow rings may be due to insects or dry conditions. On the contrary, wide rings may indicate a wet-season or the death of neighbouring vegetation, permitting rapid growth. While this method may only work on dead trees, it is not impossible to date a living tree.

Bisecting a living tree will obviously cause it immediate and irreparable damage. It is often important to identify the age of living trees. Fortunately, this is possible, even if only in a rough way. To do this, you need to multiply the diameter of the tree by its species-specific growth factor. First, you measure the circumference of the trunk in inches.  Next, calculate the diameter and then multiply the diameter by the species’ average growth factor.  Now you will have a rough age of the living tree! Here is a chart for trees and their associated growth factor. Naturally, you will need to know precisely what species you are dealing with, for that you may want to consult a professional- like the highly trained arborists.

Trees produce seeds just as smaller plants do. Their flowers or cones are fertilized by the wind, or insects or birds. But a parent tree takes up large amounts of water from the area around it, and its leaves prevent sunlight from reaching the ground beneath, so it is important that all the seeds do not fall directly beneath the tree. Some trees produce fruits that are eaten by birds or animals and carried far away in their digestive systems. Others bear seeds that have “wings” and can be blown far away by the wind.

Wind pollinator flowers may be small, no petals, and no special colors, odors, or nectar. These plants produce enormous numbers of small pollen grains. For this reason, wind-pollinated plants may be allergens, but seldom are animal-pollinated plants allergenic. Their stigmas may be large and feathery to catch the pollen grains. Insects may visit them to collect pollen, but usually are ineffective pollinators and exert little natural selection on the flowers. Anemophilous, or wind pollinated flowers, are usually small and inconspicuous, and do not possess a scent or produce nectar. The anthers may produce a large number of pollen grains, while the stamens are generally long and protrude out of flower. There are also examples of ambophilous (pollinated by two different classes of pollinators) flowers which are both wind and insect pollinated.

Most conifers and about 12% of the world’s flowering plants are wind-pollinated. Wind pollinated plants include grasses and their cultivated cousins, the cereal crops, many trees, the infamous allergenic ragweeds, and others. All release billions of pollen grains into the air so that a lucky few will hit their targets.

Water pollinated plants are aquatic. Pollen floats on the water’s surface drifting until it contacts flowers. This is called surface hydrophily, but is relatively rare (only 2% of pollination is hydrophily). This water-aided pollination occurs in waterweeds and pondweeds. In a very few cases, pollen travels underwater. Most aquatic plants are insect-pollinated, with flowers that emerge from the water into the air. 

Trees can be divided into two groups. Broad-leaved trees, which may also be deciduous, meaning that they drop their leaves in winter, are flowering plants. Sometimes their flowers are very small and difficult to spot. Conifers, most of which are evergreen, retaining their leaves all year round, are cone-bearers. They have small male cones and larger female cones instead of flowers.

If trees didn’t have flowers there would be no seeds, and if there were no seeds, new trees wouldn’t come up each year. And if new trees didn’t come up each year, there wouldn’t be forests.

Every single tree in the world has flowers, though sometimes they are too small to be seen or are buried so deep in the leaves that nobody can find them. Certain trees have flowers that come before their leaves, so people don’t notice the tiny blooms, which usually are not very colorful.

Certain trees have flowers that have no petals; others are green and appear to be buds of coming leaves unless you look very closely. There are even trees whose flowers are too small to see without a microscope.

Evergreen: Evergreen any plant that retains its leaves through the year and into the following growing season. Many tropical species of broad-leaved flowering plants are evergreen, but in cold-temperate and Arctic areas the evergreens commonly are cone-bearing shrubs or trees (conifers), such as pines and firs. The leaves of evergreens usually are thicker and more leathery than those of deciduous trees (those that shed their leaves in autumn or in the tropical dry season) and often are needlelike or scalelike in cone-bearing trees. A leaf may remain on an evergreen tree for two years or longer and may fall during any season. An evergreen forest may be needle-leaved, as the coniferous forests of the Northern Hemisphere, or broad-leaved, as the temperate rain forests of the Southern Hemisphere and the broad sclerophyll forests (with thickened, hardened foliage resistant to water loss) of coastal areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Most tropical rain forests contain broad-leaved evergreens.

As well as directly affecting the environment, trees supply homes and food for millions of other living creatures, including people. They are also the source of wood, which is used in buildings and for making such essential items as furniture and paper.

Trees are very important, valuable and necessary to our existence as they have furnished us with two important life essentials; food and oxygen. Apart from basically keeping us alive, there are many other little and big benefits we get from trees. So, trees are vital resources for the survival of all living beings. Therefore, Governments world over and many Organizations are taking steps to prevent deforestation and to tell the benefits of planting trees. Let us go through some important points about the Importance of trees for the existence of human life.

Trees play an especially important role in enhancing our quality of life in the urban environment and this is acknowledged in the Governments Sustainable Development Strategy. They screen unsightly structures and activities, give privacy and soften the hard lines of buildings. Trees also bring colour and contrasts into the urban environment.

Not only do trees have a visual quality, but they also enhance the environment in less obvious ways. Trees improve air quality by acting as natural air filters removing dust, smoke and fumes from the atmosphere by trapping them on their leaves, branches and trunks. Just 1 hectare of beech woodland can extract 4 tonnes of dust per year from the atmosphere. Trees reduce the ‘Greenhouse’ effect by removing carbon dioxide from the air and releasing oxygen. Each year a mature tree produces enough oxygen for 10 people.

Trees are also an effective sound barrier and can limit noise pollution. Recent research shows that trees also help reduce the stress of modern life. Trees in themselves benefit the environment and the landscape, but they are also an integral part of the ecosystem providing benefits to wildlife and biodiversity. Trees, especially older or veteran trees and those in groups or woodlands, provide habitats for native ground flora such as bluebells and fauna, particularly bats, red squirrels and invertebrates. The planting of trees and the care and preservation of mature trees can go a long way to making Trafford a great place to live, work learn and relax.