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Ponderings of tree biology

Hi all:

A while back, with forehead to forearm, counting slowly to ten while my

5 year old searched out the perfect hiding spot to fool her pop, I began pondering the pattern and structure of the bark on a resident Red Oak.

Why, I wondered, is the bark so rough on these Oaks whereas the bark on a birch is so smooth in comparison? If years of schooling has taught me correctly that nature adapts characteristics of organisms to environments, predators, beneficial parasites, and other aspects of survival, why is tree bark so varied, even within the same environment, and what advantages or disadvantages does a rough and furrowed bark have over a smooth and papery one?

Why would birch bark peel away in sheets and what purpose does that serve for the tree? What purpose does it serve the mature Ponderosa Pine to have the orange-colored furrows of its bark smell of vanilla?

My pondering was put on hold as I reached "ten" and turned to pretend-hunt for the giggling little girl peeking around the edge of a towering Douglas Fir.

_____ American Association of Woodturners Cascade Woodturners Assoc., Portland, Oregon Northwest Woodturners, Tigard, Oregon _____

Reply to
Owen Lowe
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You ought to see the bark on what they call a "cherry birch" up here. Looks a ringer for its namesake. Then there's the wintergreen smell of yellow birch, the cyanide smell of cherry....

Our native red oaks stay almost a smooth as beech.

Reply to
George

Snip

My thoughts:

Squirrels are famous acorn hiders. Maybe the rough bark is easier to climb?

Birch, uh, nuts don't need squirrel distribution (or perhaps they just get eaten on the spot).

Any fragrant part of a plant would attract bees to pollinate the plants.

I'm prolly wrong.

-Phil Crow

Reply to
Phil Crow

Hi Owen, Knotty question. Ask your little girl. Likely you will get a better answer from her than from me, but since you asked...;) Could the differing characteristics of the trees, as with the present diversity of Americans and other nations of immigrants, reflect that many of our trees are immigrants and in the immensity of time needed for natural selection to progress, they haven't been homogenized yet? Maybe trees don't often intermarry, so unless hybridized they keep their bark intact. ;)

In too few years you probably won't need to _pretend_ to hunt for her. Enjoy your status of being the center of her universe now; tho it probably will be diluted later, fortunately, it won't ever disappear. Arch

Fortiter,

Reply to
Arch

OK, so it took me a while to digest my own thread...

Interesting comments if one considers the size of the trees. Since an oak can drop it's acorns as the birch drops it's seeds, perhaps an oak attempting to grow beneath another oak is futile whereas a birch is small enough to allow others to invade its personal space. The oak made it's seeds tasty to squirrels for the purpose of getting the acorns out from under. ?????

I have no idea if this could be correct reasoning or not, but the natural world is really full of some interesting solutions to problems.

_____ American Association of Woodturners Cascade Woodturners Assoc., Portland, Oregon Northwest Woodturners, Tigard, Oregon _____

Reply to
Owen Lowe

Have I mentioned before I flunked out of Evelyn Wood's course? :)

Hmmmm. Verrry interrrresting. If we look at trees that only exist in select locales - like the Bristlecone Pine or the Ponderosa Pine, what characteristics of their bark are advantageous to their surroundings? Never having seen a Bristlecone or it's surroundings I can't answer - BUT I used to live in Northern Arizona surrounded by the world's largest Ponderosa forest in the world. It's a semi-arid environment that is subject to regular summer monsoon lightening strikes. (Awe inspriringly powerful, violent and beautiful storms.) Perhaps the very thick, furrowed bark of the Ponderosa in a mature stand is an insulator from the regular ground fires that serve to clear out the underbrush - if humans didn't get their noses into the equation. To what purpose does the vanilla smell serve tho? I assume it would attract an insect of some sort, but why do that?

Yes Arch, I can already foresee the day I'm second fiddle. It'll be a very tough time for me to experience her coming of age.

_____ American Association of Woodturners Cascade Woodturners Assoc., Portland, Oregon Northwest Woodturners, Tigard, Oregon _____

Reply to
Owen Lowe

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