USB Rat King

So yew trees are weird. They are extremely long lived with basically no known upper limit to their age. They do this by simply being extremely good at not dying like other trees do.

When a normal tree gets to an old age what usually happens is a fungus gets into their heartwood and takes hold. Their internal, dead wood rots away and they hollow out, lose structural support and collapse. Depending on the species this process can take decades or a good few centuries or so.

While yew trees do hollow out in this way they simply keep going afterwards. A ring shaped yew tree with most of its trunk missing is actually just middle aged and the most ancient yews get even weirder than that.

Wikipedia has this image of a Scottish yew where the start of this hollowing process can be seen. To be clear - for most tree species this would already have been fatal.

The thing is seeing a very old yew in this condition looks wrong to a tree surgeon, it's like the tree is constantly on the verge of death. So, if it's a well loved tree you try and do what you can to stop it from falling apart entirely.

A hundred years ago people tried all sorts of things like chaining up branches and also, yes, plugging the hollowed trunk with concrete. We know better nowadays.

Funnily enough there are even yews that survived this treatment and are still alive today.

This is a picture of the Tisbury yew in 1998 from the Ancient Yew Group, barely a minute ago from the tree's perspective.

Yews are fascinating plants with roots in European culture as ancient as the trees themselves. A few individual specimen trees are even estimated to be around five thousand years old - literally prehistoric in age.

Oh also they do weird things with sex as well sometimes. One of the oldest UK trees, the Fortingall yew appears to partially be turning from male to female on one side. It'll be interesting to see what becomes of it in the next few centuries of its life.

Trust me if I had control over anything I’d prevent it, but ask any of your Asian friends whether  they are from the Philippines or India and they will tell you that their families hire these child labourers. That’s the custom there. They take underprivileged children to work for them and in exchange their families get money.

It really sucks, I wish our 8 year old was in school, but that’s what they do here, not just my family but every slightly wealthy family.

Child labour is inhumane. An 8 year old should be out playing and having fun and not slaving away to make money for his family. Care enough about the 8 year old working for you? Give his family money, support them, and don’t hire him or any child to do child labour.

But my uncle? Other families? YES, they have been hiring these children, because HERE in Bangladesh that is a popular practice.

Now, ofcourse it isn’t RIGHT. Ofcourse I am against it. Ofcourse, I am documenting everything to bring some justice.

Honestly, this is why people don’t like tumblr anymore. Because some users take people’s thoughts and actions no matter how much of a good intention they may have and make it seem as if it’s the most offensive, grossest thing they have ever seem.

The Moon landing was faked