I can recall with ease how fascinating the structure of certain trees, such as oaks, willows and Japanese maples seemed to be during my halcyon days of childhood. At a certain point, my modus operandi when it came to learning and discovery turned out to be rather quaquaversal (as in spreading to every enticing field possible rather than focusing on a sole direction). Later on, other activities diminished the love of analyzing certain inner works of nature.
At the first glance, many intricate mechanisms provided by nature seem quite rudimentary to the average human in comparison with faulty man-made infrastructures for instance (made not for efficiency or for the good of the environment but long-term easy money). Here’s a few neat facts about oaks:
>Alike many living beings, trees have hormones which are responsible for crucial changes during their lifespans (some of them can reach even two thousand years!)
>They can spot seasonal changes by making use of a chemical pigment in their leaves named phytochromes. It’s a class of photoreceptors that many plants use to detect light, being particularly sensitive to the red part of the visual spectrum. Thus, our buddy is capable of measuring the hours of sunlight and darkness. As the temperatures drop and the nights get longer, the hormones kick in at the right time to prepare migrating resources for the next seasons.
>Not only they can survive a large variety of attackers, but the oak can actually sense and recognize the type of insect spreading saliva after feeding on its leaves, and other details such as the size of the attacker and even the age. Then, it proceeds to produce chemicals to keep them at bay, communicating with the other trees nearby of the possible threat by spreading airborne signals triggered by the wound hormone.
>Mycorrhizal fungi grow all over the roots in order to help them extract very important nutrients such as phosphates. The tips of the named fungi can apply an impressive amount of pressure, being able to penetrate the rocks in order to collect the goodies for the oak. Trees also communicate by electrochemical means between their roots through mycorrhizal networks. If the whole root system would be spread, it would reach about 9 kilometers. If the network is taken into calculus, it may as well reach thosands of kilometers stretched.
>They’re great friends of the forest, giving shelter to animals during the harsh seasons and providing food through acorns. It actually helps thousands of types of insects and animals to survive! Its bark can also provide a pretty solid blanket as long as temperatures do not drop between let’s say -12 degrees celsius. They dehydrate themselves during winter, the liquid remaining having concentrated sugars which is effective against freezing.
Bonus rounds of details (impact on our lives): provided ink for thousands of crucial historical documents by being used by gall wasps, solid material for millions of tools, buildings, ships, and so on.
This surely is just the tip of the iceberg, feel free to search for more information by checking out the documentaries and papers on it :) (Nature, McGavin as far as I remember)
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