Life Cycle of a Tree By Kai Tsai 1
Table Of Contents 1.Table of Contents ........................................... 2 2.What is a tree?................................................ 3, 4, 5 3. Different types of trees .................................. 6, 7, 8, 9 4. .Birth of a tree................................................... 10, 11 5. .Staying alive..................................................... 12, 13, 14 6. Falling ............................................................. 15, 16 7. Final and Death ................................................ 17, 18 8. How can humans effect trees? ......................... 19, 20, 21
9. Glossary ............................................................ 22 10. About the Author .......................................................23
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What is a tree? Trees are one big and interesting plant that you could learn about. Each different tree needs different things and things like habitats, what it needs or how could they survive in many different ways. Trees look like many things either its on the inside of the tree or outside. A tree is a very big plant, which takes a lot of patience of care to grow, and it is a plant that has such an interesting life. It goes through many cool and rising and falling stages and the changes might even surprise you. Trees are very popular but it’s very special like it could tell you the age when it dies and also fun things when it’s alive like you could tell how long until it’s dead. A tree needs a lot of different things like water, sunshine and soil but what a tree or any plant really needs to survive and to grow healthy and strong just like human’s care. e important leaves help the tree absorb the sunshine and water, and then the plant makes it into food itself. 3
ere’s so much parts of a tree but the ones that are very small also does a lot of work to the tree, roots, the trunk, the branches, leaves and probably it makes some fruit or nut. Little parts of the tree like the rootlets and the bark, just helps studies the major and big parts like the trunk and branches. When you plant a tree, the seed would come out and break after the stem comes out, all trees start with a stem to hold up a few leaves and then the stem becomes a lot thicker and starts to turn a bit dark then just completely stretch up on the side of the dark stem and turns hard and to a trunk. ere are two kinds of trees, which are very different from like the live, what it looks like and what it feels like. e first kind that is more often seen and popular is the Conifers trees. ese trees are very rough and might hurt your hand if you don’t notice. If either the trunk or anything that grows on it like fruit and nuts and leaves are pointy and feel that it’s something that is going to leave a mark and point you, it is a Conifers tree. Other than trees there are other things that are very pointy and spiky, they are also called Conifers, then whatever the name of that plant. Broadleaves are the second kind of trees and they are less likely but possible because they are the complete opposite of the Conifers section, 4
because they are very smooth and bright. ey are almost never to hurt you since they are not pointy and spiky.
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Different Kinds of Trees
ere are many different types of trees; each tree has his, own specialty and every single tree in the world is interesting in different ways. Having a short life or other bad things about trees doesn’t mean its completely terrible, different trees have different lives. Junipers is a kind of very small tree but and its very easy to grow since its almost as tall as 5 laptops only. e trunk of Junipers is very long; it takes up more than half of the whole little plant. Another good thing about Junipers is that they grow fast but it dies fast also. Its not that bad to have it die real fast because the thing is that even though Junipers die fast you could buy some immediately since its 6
even if its not that popular you still could find some. Junipers are found in different kinds of forest and also could grow in any safe sidewalk or park. e leaves on Junipers are tiny and you better watch out of the spiky and pointy leaves and the stem holding the leaves are so small like a tiny rat that you rarely see anything. But once you see these trees don’t get excited and point or press very hard on the tiny leaves or stem because its going to leave a hurting and bruising mark on your hand. A sugar maple is very popular; it is so easy to find that if you go to any forest in the world, there must be plenty. ese kinds of maples can be bought in almost every store in the world. e height is about a little shorter than a classroom. It looks a bit spiky because there are lots of leaves and branches on it. ese kinds of trees are most seen in everywhere in the world. Also it there’s lots of different color’s of it like, red, green which is the most popular, yellow, and even sometimes orange. You wont imagine how small the trunk is; the trunk 7
seems very short and chubby. e leaves on it look like they are glued together and look like they’re hugging each other. ere are a lot of little leaves but not small as the Juniper’s leave on the little trunk. It’s hard to imagine how could such a little trunk, could hold up a bundle of leaves Sitka Spruce is so rare and you probably only can find this tree in a forest because this tree is very afraid of cold or hot, if it meets either any of them it usually just dies right after the bad temperature. e time Sitka Spruce would stay alive for is not that long or short. But once you see a Sitka Spruce it would look very beautiful. e branches are quite long and usually the head tilts down a little because it needs to hold the spiky leave and a pineapple looking nut that’s pulls down the whole branch. If you cut this rare tree down people would be looking for you to be looking for looking.
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e plant that is always seen in America is Californian Redwood. It is so tall that you need binoculars to reach and see the top; it also looks like a Christmas tree but ten times taller. e best thing about Californian Redwood is that it is very good to climb and challenge because it’s very tall, it’s about 2 times taller than a classroom. is tree is very much seen in Forest in America and this tree is often in forest. People like to chop down Californian Redwood and make it into things because it’s easy and usual to do it and it isn’t like other trees, which the trunk is hard and takes a lot of time to cut it and destroy, in fact, for Californian Redwood; the trunk is so thin, small and feeble, so it takes no time to cut it.Tulip trees are pretty small since and their seed looks like a long feather but the branches are pretty long because it needs to hold up a lot of leafs. Tulip trees could live in any safe sidewalk and park and like other any tree it couldn’t live in any very cold or hot places or it either would get drowned or dried out. It is also a pretty short tree. Sometimes you would think the trunk is very short but it actually isn’t. It’s only because the branches sometimes grow in different places, which are normal, or the branches sometimes just are connected and the connection is not good then the branch would tilt a bit.
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Berth of a tree is stage is one of the most important parts of growing a tree because you need to see if you’re caring it right or not. You have to give it right amount of water; soil and sunshine or it could die real easy and fast in the berth or starting to grow stage. is step also means that you need extra care and watch for safety. For this starting stage for just planting such a small seed is actually means if this plant could live for a long time, a short time or it couldn’t even live. Everybody doesn’t want his or her seed to die so you need to plant it the right way. You need good soil loam lots of humus and other good things in it and you would need about 3 worms or so to plant few trees and never water the tree to much, if you do, put it outside in the nice warm sunshine, if outside is pouring rain, Put it inside to a dry place to dry out. After you plant a seed a good and healthy seed usually a brown and rough seed coat would slowly appear out of the place where you planted the seed. e seed coat is like the nest of the seed. It would sit on the soil and after a couple of days it would start to turn a bit purple and blackish. is means that the seed coat is about to decay and rot and the 10
trunk and branches and all the main parts are all about to form and also means that the tree is going to start his adult life. Later, slowly the seed coat rots and disappears into the soil to humus and as the tree starts to look like a tree. As soon as the stem grows about 15 inches long, the baby stage had just ended and stem should be in the middle of dark green and light green. ere should be at least 3 healthy and strong leaves stood right on top of the green and thick stem, the stem should be only moving about half a inch or whole if you pour a bucket of water on it. e seed coat should have rotted by the a time the little seedling has turned into a sapling.
This is a baby tree
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Staying alive Once your sapling is real steady and looks strong, hard and powerful, it’s time to wait for your little plant to become a big plant. ere are a lot of things to prevent and do to keep your tree alive but before you wait till the bigger things of a tree to grow you have to prevent a lot of different things. Sometimes there are a lot of bugs at this stage because there might be starting to form little fruit but only if you are planting a tree that will make something like a fruit or a nut. If it is raining almost the whole week, there is no need to water the tree. e growing stage into an actual tree that has like a trunk and branches is fun but there are many diseases could suffer easily at this stage to make your plant rot or make it just grow very fast. e most common diseases now are called blights. Blights are a disease that makes your plant wither very fast, in probably a day or so. ey make trunks turn smaller and make branches and leaves fall. is disease is caused when, plants suffer bad and awful temperature, and it gets poisoned. Fire blights are very likely to happen when a tree has blights. It basically is blights but rot in about an hour, luckily this disease doesn’t appear much in the big countries. Alternate blights make trees look weird; they do this by making all the leaves rot. is disease doesn’t damage
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the branches and trunk at all. Once new leaves grow again they just fall of immediately. Always label what you plant, do this by putting a stick!
You need a lot of other things other than just preventing things, now this turn is a very big one. You would need a lot of worms for this stage. e least amount of worms you need is 5 per tree. Worms help make trees grow healthier and faster, they do this by making sure that the seed and trunk are growing right. Since now you can’t carry the seed up, you have to only water once a week. Now, only the tree needs natural water that comes from rain. If it really is that dry, you should water it by 2 tablespoons. Fruits are the most delicious and juicy when the tree is growing bigger. Make sure no bugs especially little bug like ants and termites are not on them. ey could destroy the trunk by making a hole in it or it could eat the juice or carry it to their hole and 13
make sure that you are planting trees right because they can prevent sandstorms, hard hurricane attacks and even eat it. erosion. You need the right amount of worms, which protect your plant from getting breaking down. Not too much water or sunshine, or it could dry out or get soaked and drenched. Don’t think that trees only could grow in forests. Many Conifers could live in icy and freezing places like Antarctica.
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Falling
Your tree is almost at the end of his life. Trees could live an extremely long time; the longest time could be like fifteen to twenty years if you could care it without any errors when you just planted it. You should always, plant your tree in a very safe place, like a backyard, or a lawn. You do this because million trees are cut down each second in the world. People do this to make furniture and mostly paper for work. If you have like tons and tons of seeds, a better choice is to plant it in a forest or a sidewalk, which would keep away erosion, bad hurricanes and other storms. 15
People sent these poor cut down trees into big factories and paper factories, which make really bad pollution that could damage the air. You should always plant trees at all cases, all times because they can make clean and make new and fresh oxygen to tie and even the bad air. Something awful can happen when the terrible pollution from the factories and a rain had just past which would make the ground all wet, then the sky would make a kind of rain which is called a acid rain, this kind of This is a tree that horrible liquid pours down slowly down and ruins all the leaves and lives in the cold smells like mold. If this happens in a forest, all the trees would get ruined and would melt and cut all, every single one of the leaves and eradicate it. e first thing the tree does assemble that it’s going to die soon, but not cut down, a few leaves would fall down and the branches would get a bit darkened. ings that grow on it like, nuts and fruits would get dark as sesame, and fall of during nighttime or midnight usually. en almost all the fruits and leaves all fall down except for a couple of them. And if there is no more leaves and the roots are starting to break down, the tree couldn’t only hold himself up using only a trunk and they need a lot of leaves to produce the water and sunshine into food, but couldn’t if it is dying. 16
Final and Death After your tree had had such a long After winter, trees life it’s about time to look like this end your tree’s life. It actually takes about a few months. But it is a little sad because you never want your tree to die but that is how the life cycle goes. e second part how the trees die is the leaves and fruit completely fall and the branches start to rot and get loose. en many branches Fun fact fall of. Next, it’s time for breaking the trunk. It takes a long time to make the ! Newborn trees would tree rot. But still, the trunk gets take the root of a dead one. weaker and weaker and at last, finally the bark starts to peel off and everything else still left on the tree. After the tree rots and dies, the tree looks like a pile of tall soil and dirt. e dirt eventually turns into humus, and makes the soil rich and good. After the tree dies 17
if you quickly plant another tree guess what, that means your tree is not dead but is just having another chance for his life. e tree can do this by taking root of the dead tree. e seed connects to it and pulls the roots and makes it the same tree.
Fun Fact Sometimes trees die in the desert without leaves
Trees usually die because bad air like acid rain or even more likely it’s all because humans, many people like us cut down trees and think they are just earning money and think they are doing the right thing for making paper and materials. ey are completely not doing the right thing; if you see people doing that or you are you should stop right the moment you know. And really impossible is how a tree dies naturally. But even if they die it is not the end of their 18
life since all trees can take root and continues the dead trees life into a new tree.
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How human effect trees?
Did you know trees are dying almost every second in the world? All human can help trees not die without taking root? Humans can do this by not throwing garbage on the floor and can banish some minor factories out of the country, they do nothing except polluting the earth with smoke and dirty fog. Never cut down a lot of trees but some to make paper, which is pretty to human like as he count, “1, 2, 3, 4” and so on every second trees cut down. Imagine such a big plant getting cut down each second it’s very scary.
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In many countries in the large Eastern Countries like Russia and China Factories are built every minute and every millisecond about more than a hundred million factories are polluting and sending bad air down to the countries. is cause the air two turn gray and go down to people lungs and make us sick.ere are many things we could do to save trees and doing it will also make our lives better since we can have a lot of fresh and clean oxygen so we can breath. We can do this by using both sides of a paper, or you even tell the Fun fact Always plant a tree on a dry governor that the stop building sunny day factories and start making stuff that doesn’t cause trees to fall and die.
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Glossary Bark...................... e outside of a tree trunk Feeble................... Weak and not strong Loam .................... A rich soil Seedling................ A tall root with strong leaves Sapling ................. A tall and steady that is about to make a trunk Prevent ................ Avoid and protect from Erosion ................ the process of being eroded by wind or weathering Humus ................. A good soil with lots of dead plants and animals in it Banish .................. Kick out
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About the Author
Kai Tsai is a student at Shanghai American School. Kai is only almost 9 years old when he wrote this book, he is born in Taiwan. He enjoys reading scary books during midnight, in his dark room. He’d always like to write non-fiction books since he loves to add fun details to his story, the most challenging part of writing for him is too find a idea to write, once he discovers it, he can blast of as fast as a rocket with his writing, he doesn’t like to do homework at all times, but he does it.
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