7 minute read
Tidbits Barks Up a Few Trees • Vol. 20: #4 • (1-21-2024) Tidbits of Coachella Valley
Did you know that more than 60,000 species of trees have been identified worldwide? There are an estimated 3.04 trillion trees in the world, which works out to about 422 trees for each person on the planet. This week Tidbits pays tribute to these leafy marvels and the many ways our very existence depends on them. Follow along and prepare to learn.
• Some scientists suggest that trees haven't always existed in Earth's history, theorizing that the world was first covered with mosses that initially grew no taller than a few feet in height. Itʼs thought that these ubiquitous plants gradually began to develop in size over the millennia until the first true trees eventually began to emerge.
• But whatever the exact origin, there's no question about the vital role they serve in transforming our planet's atmosphere into an oxygen-rich environment where humans and other animals could not otherwise survive.
• Forests cover around 30% of Earth’s total land area. Over half of the forests in the world are found in just five countries: Russia, Brazil, Canada, the U.S., and China.
• Countries with the least forest cover include desert countries like Egypt and Libya, and small, densely populated countries such as Monaco, and frigid countries like Iceland.
• About 58 percent of all tree species exist within the boundaries of several countries. Places with the most of these “country-endemic” species include Australia, Brazil, China, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia.
• Brazil has the most species at over 8,700, with about half of them only being found there.
• Although tropical rainforests cover only about three percent of Earth’s surface, they are home to around half the planet’s animal species.
• The Amazon rainforest alone contributes an estimated 20 percent of Earth’s oxygen, while phytoplankton in the oceans contribute a whopping 70 percent.
• About 18% of the world’s forests are located within the boundaries of protected areas including national parks, game reserves, and conservation areas. Africa has the most with 31 percent, and Europe has the least at five percent.
TREE FACTS
• Any mature tree during its dormant period is 99 percent dead. The only living parts of a tree are the leaves, buds, vascular tissues (phloem and xylem), and its root tips. The rest of the tree’s mass provides structural support.
• Trees get about 90 percent of their nutrition from the sun and the atmosphere and only ten percent from the soil.
• More than half of a typical tree’s roots grow only six inches deep, and most of the rest go only about 18 inches deep. Few species of trees have true tap roots.
• The deepest tree roots ever found belong to a wild fig whose roots were found dangling in a wet cave in South Africa, 400 feet below the surface.
TREE VARIETIES
• The tropical manchineel tree is the world’s most toxic tree, with all parts of it being deadly including the bark, leaves, fruit, and sap. Even the smoke from burning the wood and rain dripping off the leaves can sicken or be fatal to a human.
Manchineel trees grow on coastal beaches and in brackish swamps, where it thrives among mangroves. In the U.S. they are mostly found in Florida.
• Pine trees are the world’s most common species, found on all continents except Antarctica.
• The rarest tree is the Pennantia baylisiana, which lives only on an island off New Zealand. When goats were introduced to the island, they destroyed the trees until only one was left. Scientists are working to save the tree by rooting cuttings and germinating seeds.
• The dwarf willow is the world’s smallest tree, reaching a height of only 2.5 inches. It grows in the harsh tundra.
• The tallest tree is a coastal redwood in California, proudly standing at a height of 380 feet. Its age is estimated to be around 2,000 years.
• The oldest known tree in the world is a Great Basin bristlecone pine, also found in California, and estimated to be 5,068 years old. It beat out another bristlecone pine (nicknamed Methuselah) for the title, which was only 4,852 years old.
• The world’s third-oldest tree, called Prometheus and located in the same grove, was 4,844 years old when it was cut down in 1964 in order to determine its actual age. All these trees are located in Inyo National Forest in California, in undisclosed locations to prevent visitor damage and vandalism. These trees predate the construction of the Pyramids in Egypt.
• Bristlecone pines may be the oldest individual trees, but groups of cloned trees are much older. The oldest is an aspen grove in Utah, collectively called “Pando” which is Latin for “I spread.” It covers over 100 acres and consists of about 47,000 genetically identical individual trees linked by a single root system estimated to be several thousand years old. It is the world’s largest single organism by mass. Alas, the grove is gradually dying out, largely due to various human interferences.
• The thickest tree, called “the tree of Tule,” is located in the town of Santa María del Tule in Mexico. This cypress has a circumference of 137.8 feet, and it takes 105 men standing shoulder-to-shoulder to surround it. Only a few sequoias come close to its massive girth.
TREE TRIVIA
• The blackest wood is ebony, which is so heavy and dense it sinks rather than floats in water. Artisans are able to polish ebony to a fine finish with a mirror-like shine.
• The Osage orange tree or hedge apple, native to the southern U.S., generates the most heat of any wood when burned.
• Apollo astronaut Stuart Roosa took several hundred tree seed varieties with him to the Moon in 1971. Upon return, they were germinated and planted in college science labs all over the U.S. to see if they had been affected in any way. They all grew entirely normally.
• If you carve your initials in a tree and come back in ten or twenty years, the initials will be at the identical height as they first were.
• The benefits derived from trees range from food sources, numerous medicines and raw materials, to shade, windbreaks, soil stabilization, and flood control, not to mention beauty.
• A large oak can drop 10,000 acorns in a year, feeding over 100 species of animals.
• In Baltimore, a ten percent increase in tree cover on city streets corresponded to a twelve percent decrease in crime.
• The addition of just one large tree in the middle of an open pasture increases bird biodiversity from nearly zero to as high as 80.
• Hospital patients recover eight percent faster if they can see trees from their hospital window.
