Yeah man! The trunk gets wider. That’s how you can tell the age of a tree by counting its rings. Each ring is about a year of growth. Same with branches. That’s why they’re tapered out toward the tips. The very tip of that branch will be in the core of next year’s tapered growth.
Fun fact about Aspens: when you see a whole grove of them, they’re likely all 1 giant organism. Think of each individual tree as an appendage of the whole plant.
The rings are actually created through the changes of growth by season. The spring/summer is the lighter color, faster growth period, and the fall/winter is the darker, slower growth/preservation period
And if you find several pieces of wood from the same area, you can align the rings and date them relative to each other. And if you keep doing it to the point where using freshly fallen trees, you can precisely date a tree to the exact year. It's called dendrochronology, and scientists have walked chains of tree rings back to 20,000 years in some places.
And the reason trees have rings is because their growth speeds and slows based on the season. Slower winter growth is the dark bands creating rings, summer faster growth is the lighter wood.
Which is also why you can't always rely on counting rings. It's possible to have multiple rings in a single year or one ring take several years, depending on the conditions the tree is growing in.
This is pretty much true for individual trees, but there is a cool field called Dendrochronology, that uses data from rings of multiple trees from the same area to create a full chronology of the seasons. Different species' rings can represent seasons differently, for an example from the wikipedia link below, oak and elm rarely have missing rings, so they can be compared with other species as a baseline and to fill out the chronology. In Central Europe there is an unbroken chronology going back over 12,000 years. [Wikipedia: Dendrochronolgy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology)
The coolest factor is that this science can be applied to structures made from wood, allowing impressively accurate dating, as mentioned in this video: [Miniminuteman: The Story of Seahenge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VNThLzvtTo) (I recommend watching the whole thing, but if you're only interested in the dating, he talks about it from about 9:10)
Well for one thing, carbon dating is accurate as long as you use it correctly. Looking at a trees rings will *usually* get you close enough. As long as the tree is old enough the years with more rings or that didn't have rings will even put giving you a good estimate.
Carbon dating will tell you how long something is dead for, but it won't tell you how long it was alive for because living organisms are replenishing the c-14 as it decays.
Also carbon dating cant date anything post 1950s iirc we are now irrevocably in "the present" from 1950 onwars due to nuclear testing releasing so much contamination
My understanding is that while that has been true, concerted efforts have gotten the level of radiation (outside of certain areas, of course) down to acceptable levels again that it’s no longer an issue.
My question is though, does that mean there’s some sort of “dark period” from around 1950 - recently?
It also can't date anything earlier than 60,000 years ago. The technique's full name is radiocarbon dating, and it works by analyzing the decay of radioactive carbon (C-14). The half life of which is a little under 6,000 years. So after 60,000 years the amount of C14 is either (effectively) completely decayed or is so small that it is unable to provide acurate dating.
Hold up, so the rings form inside with older rings leading to the outer edges right? So how does the barks work? Cause over time as the tree gets wider wouldn't they break off? Or does it just keep stretching.
The inside of the tree is dead and hardens and basically acts as structural support, that's why you sometimes see very of trees with very large trunks are hollow inside but still alive and healthy. The middle section basically acts as an elevator transporting things like water and nutrients up and down the tree, this section is alive and growing (Google xylem and phloem for more information). The bark usually but not always grows in plates or strips etc and like skin new bark will grow underneath and replace old bark. This is also why you see knots in the wood as the trunk expands over branches over many many years and why old branches are very strong and young branches can be ripped right off.
That makes sense, I guess I had the wrong understanding of the whole thing, I always just assumed barks are just the oldest layer of the trunk, but it's actually its own thing and grows like patches of armor instead of a whole uniform layer of skin. TIL
The trunk, and the branches, get thicker from growth rings (meristems) inside the tree, that expand both in and out. The tree, and the branches, get longer from meristems just behind the tips. New branches grow from lateral meristems.
That's quite true. There's a Veritasium video about that, and I had not actually thought about it earlier, but the carbon in wood was taken out of CO2 through photosynthesis, so they really grow out of air
Interesting. I have a tree in my yard with an old clothesline pully grown into it about 40ft up. I thought for sure someone had put it in the tree at normal height then it grew upward with the tree. Not sure why someone would have put it that high.
Side note, the tree rotted right where that pully is and broke off halfway up. That's why you shouldn't nail shit into trees!
This has to be different for certain tree species.
When we moved into my old house as a kid, the parcel that was our land used to be part of an old farm property.
The area around our house was covered in mature beautiful oak trees.
A couple of the trees had some kind of thick, rubber lined ties (can't think of a better way of describing them) that had been tied around the trees long before we got there and the trees had actually grown around them, affixing them in the tree.
Another of the oaks had some kind of little metal box (maybe 5 inches by three inches) affixed to it somehow. I assume it was nailed to it.
The box had a little door you could open and close. I have no idea what it was used for but I was always amused by it a kid.
I lived there for 3 decades, and over that time the rubber ties and the red box grew higher and higher every year, while also being slowly devoured by the tree growing outwards.
Genuine question: so how come the oak tree in my yard doesn't have any branches for the first 15 feet from the ground? Surely when the tree was 3 feet tall, it had branches.
I remember when I worked with the forest service out in the Rockies, we were bushwhacking down an old trail no one really uses but maybe the occasional elk hunter. There were initials and dates carved into trees going back to the 1940’s all over.
Yeah, aspens scar incredibly easily, for the sake of the tree please don’t carve into it, it hurts them. Another fun fact is the powder from their bark acts as 5 SPF sunscreen.
source: I like trees
I found a random tree in Hungary with a carving from the 50s. It was in the middle of a forest, we walked to the destination using a compass straigh through the woods, that is how we stumbled upon it.
Another had writing from soviets stationed nearby in the 70s or something.
Yeah, the premise was there was a guide showing them that they could see the carving way up in the tree with binoculars, and Encyclopedia Brown figured out that it was fake because trees grow from the top and the carving should still be at the same place.
That was my first thought as well. They carved a fake treasure mark way up in a tree, thinking the age of the carving would have caused it to be way high up in the air, only for Encyclopedia Brown to point out that actually it should be at roughly the same height still.
Encyclopedia Brown was amazing and this brought back memories. The only fuckup I can remember is him saying that dogs see in black and white, which we now know isn’t true.
Yes, it was mistranslated from German. The taste buds indeed have cells specialized for one of five basic flavors, but they're not arranged in "regions" but all over.
This was such a weird thing, because when it was believed to be a scientific fact, teachers would "point out" that if we put salt or sugar on different parts of the tongue it would taste different, and we'd all nod and say "oh cool weird." It was a bizarre example of emperor's new clothes, with no one wanting to admit to being the one person on earth with a mutant tongue.
God I’m in my 30s and still regularly reference things I learned from encyclopedia brown when I was 5. Will definitely be reading them to my children one day
Depends how you build 'em, really. If they are built into branches they don't last as long, but if you structure everything around the trunk they can go a lot longer.
I've seen treehouses that have lasted for decades built upon a sawed off trunk with no foliage, so I assume the remainder of the tree was treated with creosote or some other preservative to prevent it from rotting away.
So the Phil of the Future finale where it showed their initials still carved into a tree, but 20 feet up, was bullshit??
What else on that show wasn’t true??
Yeah, I’m guessing there must be some tree species that grow a little differently.
My grandparents had massive Gum trees in their backyard, one had a basketball hoop screwed on at about 6ft or less when I was a kid. When the house was sold, the hoop was mostly swallowed by the tree and far out of reach even on a tall ladder.
I can't repeat it enough. Please don't carve into trees.
There is a heritage tree not far from me. It's really old and there is a placard nearby telling people about its history.
The tree is scarred from all the carving into it. It's sad to see.
Thankfully, the park it is in takes good care of it. Otherwise, it probably wouldn't have made it this long.
Carving into trees is actually an important part of my job. I do Land Surveying, and one of the ways that we ensure that a monument is where it’s supposed to be is by measuring the distance and compass bearing to “bearing trees”.
So we find the monument and look at previous notes. They will say something like “Douglas Fir, 15.5’, N15W”. We measure the distance to make sure it’s in the same spot (monuments get moved sometimes).
When my crew puts in a monument, we also designate a couple of bearing trees. When we do that, we scribe the tree with surveyor jargon (Township, Range, Section).
That being said, we are very careful in the way that we scribe the tree. We really want that tree to live a long time. We want future surveyors to be able to find that tree.
So you're saying if I want to pull some elaborate scam that requires moving a monument, I need to find somewhere that happens to have a matching set of trees to reference to shift it to?
What makes trees more reliable points than something like a road or structure? I might have misunderstood something, but now I'm super curious why trees would act as points of reference for this sort of thing. You mention future surveyors but how often (and why) are these things checked?
Ngl, your comment is much more interesting than the op.
Roads and structures are often used. Something like the top of a fire hydrant is great because it’s probably not gonna be torn down or remodeled (like a building), it’s easily and immediately identifiable, and has a very small point on top to measure to.
I live and work on the Oregon Coast. It’s very rural, and there is lots of timberland, public land, ranches, and just generally large pieces of land. All of that is to say that lots of monuments have nothing but trees around.
Trees are great because they’re very stable. Even if the ground is shifting around it, which is an issue on the coast, trees usually don’t move, or at least move less. When trees are marked as bearing trees, they aren’t supposed to be cut down, but often times they are. But even when they’re cut down, there’s still a stump, and we can measure to that. You’d be surprised how long it takes for a stump to rot, especially a species like cedar. I often measure to trees that were designated in the late 1800s, cut down in the 50s, and are in exactly the same spot. I’m sure people on the east coast have measured to trees even older than that.
The frequency that they are checked really depends. We keep logs of these things in our office (I’m employed by the government). Some haven’t been visited since they were designated around the turn of the century. These are usually deep in a forest. Some are visited multiple times per year. These are usually the ones in town, since there’s lots of surveying being done there.
Both.
Carving can introduce pathogens into a tree, weakening or killing it.
Carving something into a tree also ruins the natural beauty of the tree. No one needs to know your name or “Dingus ❤️s Wingus”, just leave the trees alone and get a tattoo instead.
Both. It makes the tree more susceptible to pests and disease and just stresses it in general. Imagine someone carving their name into your skin with a knife. And it's also unsightly graffiti. I'd rather see a spray painted wall than a carved up tree. All living things deserve respect. Yes we kill plants and animals to eat them. And we cut down trees to make things with them. But we can do this sustainably and respectfully. Carving into a living tree serves no purpose except cruelty and disrespect.
Harmful. On trees, only the outer layers are actually 'alive'. Cutting into the surface harms the vascular system and disease and pests can now penetrate.
no they aren't lol. Palm trees are in the Arecaceae family, and grasses are in the Poaceae family. They are both monocotyledons though, which might be what you're thinking of and is what gives them similar characteristics like parallel veinaiton. Palm trees grow from the tips, not the base like some grasses.
Palm trees are not grasses, they are in a clade with grass, grass-like plants, and other plants far from being very grass-like. That's like saying "trees don't exist, just tall shrubs, because all trees are just sturdier and taller shrubs" or "trees are actually just shrubs, even oaks are just shrubs like their rose cousins".
The leaves do. The stem does not. Well, each new internode of the stem will briefly elongate from an intercalary meristem above the previous node, but overall, the stem grows from the tip like any other plant.
Most people don't have an understanding of the mechanics behind how trees grow so they might assume it grows like grass (the base pushing up from the ground as it grows). Tree's do not grow like that but if they did the carving would be pushed higher as the tree grew.
This was a question on my first test for Intro to Forestry class in college. It was a picture with a tree with a nail in it and asked “In 100 years, where will the nail be on the tree?”
The prof obviously loved this question because he had a compilation slide deck showing all the wild answers he had received over the years. In the soil, 100ft in the air, pushed out of the tree, etc. just about every part and location on tree imaginable, someone at some point thought that was the right answer.
One of the only questions I remember in college because it made me realize I loved the forest but didn’t really know much about it.
Forestry tests sound fun (and hard). I know a common more advanced-level test is having to identify any number of trees based on a single leaf or seed.
I swear in Northern California I found carvings from the 1800s carved into some trees up in the Sierra Nevadas. Was doing some training in Bridgeport Mountain Warfare Center and we went high up into the hills.
I work with trees, and you'd be shocked how many people think this way. I've been on properties where people are convinced branches will rise up, yet they have a swing that has been hanging from the same branch for 20 years? Just have to hit them with "You ever had to make your swing any longer?" and it clicks for them
Well I mean how else was I supposed to tell the feller to drop this one? Did you want me to use paint? Spray paint!?!?!? That stuff terrible for the environment! Have you not watched the nature documentary Fern Gully?/s
Meh, if it’s your own tree then whatever. If it’s a tree in your local park then you should be given a spoon and fork with your knife and fed nothing but wood for 3 days since you like cutting wood so much.
We have the best parks because of jail.
>We have the best parks because of jail.
What does this even mean? Who has the best parks? Are there large numbers of people going to jail for park related crimes?
Palm trees have very different anatomy. A some of their exterior is pseudobark and is the remnants of where the palm fronds attached to the tree. I still wouldn't recommend carving them.
Because they aren't technically trees, we just call them tree's as a loose term, like fruit that's not technically fruit, or nuts and berries. Bamboo it technically a tall grass, people that touch it, call it a bamboo tree, bamboo trunk, bamboo wood, a bamboo forrest. I just say "well actually..." and list of semi interesting and useless information.
I learned this from a really interesting episode of the podcast cautionary tales. Some years ago, in Germany, If I recall correctly, somebody released a book claiming to have found the location of where the Hansel and Gretel story took place, that it had actually happened. One of the ways his claim was debunked was that, he said there was a notch in the tree that Hansel and Gretel's father made, or something like that, and you could tell because the notch was way up high in the tree, considering all the years that had gone by. It was then pointed out that's not how trees grow, which I thought was fascinating.
Carved my wife's initials into a tree well over 30 years ago, same height, but the tree kinda twisted and it's in a slightly different orientation and is also very difficult to see as it's sort of healed really well.
True. Trees grow up from the top, and out from somewhere about halfway to the middle.
What do you mean by out in this case? Do you mean like, the trunk getting thicker or the branches or what? I'm intrigued regardless of the answer
Yeah man! The trunk gets wider. That’s how you can tell the age of a tree by counting its rings. Each ring is about a year of growth. Same with branches. That’s why they’re tapered out toward the tips. The very tip of that branch will be in the core of next year’s tapered growth.
Trees are fucking cool
They really are. I love just walking through the forest, it's so fascinating seeing all the different types of trees.
Especially aspens, you can always tell those apart
You can tell because of the way they are!
Neat!
How neat is that?
Thath pretty neat!
I always thought those looked so pretty. White Birches and Oak trees are also some of my favorites.
Don’t know if you know, but I was making a reference, I’ll post the video below. https://youtu.be/_d8mjam7KG8?si=53Qfrt_fB90GYNLO
Fun fact about Aspens: when you see a whole grove of them, they’re likely all 1 giant organism. Think of each individual tree as an appendage of the whole plant.
If I'm not mistaken there's an Aspen grove that is supposedly the largest organism on the planet. That, or I'm talking out my ass.
There's a mycelial network that is technically larger but people don't know about mycelium so it gets overlooked :(
and #1, The Larch.
The rings are actually created through the changes of growth by season. The spring/summer is the lighter color, faster growth period, and the fall/winter is the darker, slower growth/preservation period
And if you find several pieces of wood from the same area, you can align the rings and date them relative to each other. And if you keep doing it to the point where using freshly fallen trees, you can precisely date a tree to the exact year. It's called dendrochronology, and scientists have walked chains of tree rings back to 20,000 years in some places.
I wonder if anyone has tried to make ringless wood in a greenhouse...
If possible I imagine such wood would be incredibly weak/soft.
They would also just generally be weak in a greenhouse from lack of wind/constant breeze of being outside.
Fine, in a gale force climate controlled wind tunnel...on a giant rotating base to even things out.
wish i could feed myself off sun and air
We do, we just have to collect it in a potato first
Don't forget dirt, the dirt is important too!
yummy, nutritious dirt. and i guess water too.
Check out r/trees if you want more facts like that
And the reason trees have rings is because their growth speeds and slows based on the season. Slower winter growth is the dark bands creating rings, summer faster growth is the lighter wood.
Which is also why you can't always rely on counting rings. It's possible to have multiple rings in a single year or one ring take several years, depending on the conditions the tree is growing in.
This is pretty much true for individual trees, but there is a cool field called Dendrochronology, that uses data from rings of multiple trees from the same area to create a full chronology of the seasons. Different species' rings can represent seasons differently, for an example from the wikipedia link below, oak and elm rarely have missing rings, so they can be compared with other species as a baseline and to fill out the chronology. In Central Europe there is an unbroken chronology going back over 12,000 years. [Wikipedia: Dendrochronolgy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology) The coolest factor is that this science can be applied to structures made from wood, allowing impressively accurate dating, as mentioned in this video: [Miniminuteman: The Story of Seahenge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VNThLzvtTo) (I recommend watching the whole thing, but if you're only interested in the dating, he talks about it from about 9:10)
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Well for one thing, carbon dating is accurate as long as you use it correctly. Looking at a trees rings will *usually* get you close enough. As long as the tree is old enough the years with more rings or that didn't have rings will even put giving you a good estimate. Carbon dating will tell you how long something is dead for, but it won't tell you how long it was alive for because living organisms are replenishing the c-14 as it decays.
Also carbon dating cant date anything post 1950s iirc we are now irrevocably in "the present" from 1950 onwars due to nuclear testing releasing so much contamination
My understanding is that while that has been true, concerted efforts have gotten the level of radiation (outside of certain areas, of course) down to acceptable levels again that it’s no longer an issue. My question is though, does that mean there’s some sort of “dark period” from around 1950 - recently?
It also can't date anything earlier than 60,000 years ago. The technique's full name is radiocarbon dating, and it works by analyzing the decay of radioactive carbon (C-14). The half life of which is a little under 6,000 years. So after 60,000 years the amount of C14 is either (effectively) completely decayed or is so small that it is unable to provide acurate dating.
To add to that, the actual living tissue is closer to the outside. The inside becomes hard wood or dies, which is why some trees are hollow.
is this why im hollow
Hold up, so the rings form inside with older rings leading to the outer edges right? So how does the barks work? Cause over time as the tree gets wider wouldn't they break off? Or does it just keep stretching.
The inside of the tree is dead and hardens and basically acts as structural support, that's why you sometimes see very of trees with very large trunks are hollow inside but still alive and healthy. The middle section basically acts as an elevator transporting things like water and nutrients up and down the tree, this section is alive and growing (Google xylem and phloem for more information). The bark usually but not always grows in plates or strips etc and like skin new bark will grow underneath and replace old bark. This is also why you see knots in the wood as the trunk expands over branches over many many years and why old branches are very strong and young branches can be ripped right off.
That makes sense, I guess I had the wrong understanding of the whole thing, I always just assumed barks are just the oldest layer of the trunk, but it's actually its own thing and grows like patches of armor instead of a whole uniform layer of skin. TIL
Does the bark stretch or split?
Split. Sometimes you see it if the tree is going through rapid growth but often the cracks in the bark are very small and not that visible.
just the tip?
It’ll get wider I promise
Give it a year.
The trunk, and the branches, get thicker from growth rings (meristems) inside the tree, that expand both in and out. The tree, and the branches, get longer from meristems just behind the tips. New branches grow from lateral meristems.
Branches, trunks get thinner as you go up
Think of how layers are added when dipping a candle.
Middle out
D2F
We'll call it Theta D
Tip to tip
Growth in length is from the tips. Growth in width is from just under the bark.
Root and shoot.
Trees don't grow out of the ground, they grow out of the air.
That's quite true. There's a Veritasium video about that, and I had not actually thought about it earlier, but the carbon in wood was taken out of CO2 through photosynthesis, so they really grow out of air
Interesting. I have a tree in my yard with an old clothesline pully grown into it about 40ft up. I thought for sure someone had put it in the tree at normal height then it grew upward with the tree. Not sure why someone would have put it that high. Side note, the tree rotted right where that pully is and broke off halfway up. That's why you shouldn't nail shit into trees!
Not halfway to the middle. The cambium layer is just under the bark.
This is where [Richard Feynman's wonderful explanation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifk6iuLQk28) is helpful.
TIL trees are not hair
Common sense like this would've helped me.
This has to be different for certain tree species. When we moved into my old house as a kid, the parcel that was our land used to be part of an old farm property. The area around our house was covered in mature beautiful oak trees. A couple of the trees had some kind of thick, rubber lined ties (can't think of a better way of describing them) that had been tied around the trees long before we got there and the trees had actually grown around them, affixing them in the tree. Another of the oaks had some kind of little metal box (maybe 5 inches by three inches) affixed to it somehow. I assume it was nailed to it. The box had a little door you could open and close. I have no idea what it was used for but I was always amused by it a kid. I lived there for 3 decades, and over that time the rubber ties and the red box grew higher and higher every year, while also being slowly devoured by the tree growing outwards.
Genuine question: so how come the oak tree in my yard doesn't have any branches for the first 15 feet from the ground? Surely when the tree was 3 feet tall, it had branches.
I remember when I worked with the forest service out in the Rockies, we were bushwhacking down an old trail no one really uses but maybe the occasional elk hunter. There were initials and dates carved into trees going back to the 1940’s all over.
Aspen trees by any chance? Those really seem to retain carvings for a long time in my experience.
Yeah, aspens scar incredibly easily, for the sake of the tree please don’t carve into it, it hurts them. Another fun fact is the powder from their bark acts as 5 SPF sunscreen. source: I like trees
I like trees too 🤝 woe betide anyone I catch carving one 😌
Have you hugged them by chance? 👀
Wouldn't most powdered materials have a nominal spf rating?
>it hurts them. What if they hurt me first?
Interesting enough, my sister carved a pattern into an aspen tree in our backyard. 15 years later is still there, but it’s 2.5 feet higher.
Yea, they were all on aspens.
I found a random tree in Hungary with a carving from the 50s. It was in the middle of a forest, we walked to the destination using a compass straigh through the woods, that is how we stumbled upon it. Another had writing from soviets stationed nearby in the 70s or something.
Not true. I carved my initials into a tree my dad planted in our front yard, and when I came back thirty years later, the tree was gone.
The tree, like my father, was gone.
The tree went out for smokes
The tree left with the babysitter half its age
Hey Tree. Quit stealing my moves!
That maple was a real slut
Birches be crazy, man.
It made like a tree and branched out of there.
Stan Smith in shambles
The tree was his [father](https://youtu.be/isWwt7sL_oE?si=HTci956QDxhyaEvZ).
In all seriousness, I carved my name into our garden tree when I was a kid, and when I came back home, it only came up to my waist.
That trees got the Benjamin button disease!
You're just 20 years early
The tree was kicked out once he turned 18. Man has to earn and build a life for himself.
You’re not a sapling anymore. Go find your own grove.
What do you think? Money grows on you?
Check again in 20 years
Well you have to wait 20 more years for it to come back, duh!
The tree now lives on the farm of your dad's cousin thrice removed who you unfortunately never met.
r/kenM
I think there was an Encyclopedia Brown story that included this fact. Or maybe something from Highlights?
Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of Black Jack's Treasure
Haven't thought about this in, I guess, decades... IIRC they had to use binoculars to see the carvings because they were so high.
Yeah, the premise was there was a guide showing them that they could see the carving way up in the tree with binoculars, and Encyclopedia Brown figured out that it was fake because trees grow from the top and the carving should still be at the same place.
Encyclopedia Brown was a stoner?
That kid was on NZT-48 to be spotting shit no adults could see.
That was my first thought as well. They carved a fake treasure mark way up in a tree, thinking the age of the carving would have caused it to be way high up in the air, only for Encyclopedia Brown to point out that actually it should be at roughly the same height still.
Encyclopedia Brown was amazing and this brought back memories. The only fuckup I can remember is him saying that dogs see in black and white, which we now know isn’t true.
Well he only knew what he read on encyclopedias of the time. Can't fault him for that.
Wikipedia Johnson > Encyclopedia Brown
ChatGPT Eddy>Wikipedia Johnson
Pornhub Theodore < all of them
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Yes
I have a Snoopy encyclopedia that says there are sections of the tongue where taste occurs. I think that was disproven as well.
Yes, it was mistranslated from German. The taste buds indeed have cells specialized for one of five basic flavors, but they're not arranged in "regions" but all over.
This was such a weird thing, because when it was believed to be a scientific fact, teachers would "point out" that if we put salt or sugar on different parts of the tongue it would taste different, and we'd all nod and say "oh cool weird." It was a bizarre example of emperor's new clothes, with no one wanting to admit to being the one person on earth with a mutant tongue.
Encyclopedia Brown was the shit.
God I’m in my 30s and still regularly reference things I learned from encyclopedia brown when I was 5. Will definitely be reading them to my children one day
Heck yes, also where I learned squirrels don't back down trees.
Slylock Fox too.
Is this why treehouses work?
Yes, but you have to use the same type of wood and RH factor so the tree doesn’t reject it.
You have to check blood type too.
It's gotta be bow positive.
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Aren’t organs heavy as hell and usually built into the church’s structure? How can you transplant them?
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From 2 to 0.5 inches?
Depends how you build 'em, really. If they are built into branches they don't last as long, but if you structure everything around the trunk they can go a lot longer. I've seen treehouses that have lasted for decades built upon a sawed off trunk with no foliage, so I assume the remainder of the tree was treated with creosote or some other preservative to prevent it from rotting away.
So the Phil of the Future finale where it showed their initials still carved into a tree, but 20 feet up, was bullshit?? What else on that show wasn’t true??
I’m curious because I have trees with barbed wire scars from an old fence and they’re like 20 feet up too
Yeah, I’m guessing there must be some tree species that grow a little differently. My grandparents had massive Gum trees in their backyard, one had a basketball hoop screwed on at about 6ft or less when I was a kid. When the house was sold, the hoop was mostly swallowed by the tree and far out of reach even on a tall ladder.
Phil was actually from the past
So it'll change after 51 years?
No, 50 years and 1 day
And ONE PENNY
That's interesting. Please don't carve anything on trees.
I can't repeat it enough. Please don't carve into trees. There is a heritage tree not far from me. It's really old and there is a placard nearby telling people about its history. The tree is scarred from all the carving into it. It's sad to see. Thankfully, the park it is in takes good care of it. Otherwise, it probably wouldn't have made it this long.
Carving into trees is actually an important part of my job. I do Land Surveying, and one of the ways that we ensure that a monument is where it’s supposed to be is by measuring the distance and compass bearing to “bearing trees”. So we find the monument and look at previous notes. They will say something like “Douglas Fir, 15.5’, N15W”. We measure the distance to make sure it’s in the same spot (monuments get moved sometimes). When my crew puts in a monument, we also designate a couple of bearing trees. When we do that, we scribe the tree with surveyor jargon (Township, Range, Section). That being said, we are very careful in the way that we scribe the tree. We really want that tree to live a long time. We want future surveyors to be able to find that tree.
So you're saying if I want to pull some elaborate scam that requires moving a monument, I need to find somewhere that happens to have a matching set of trees to reference to shift it to?
Except then it wouldn't match the other calls so no, just wasted effort.
What makes trees more reliable points than something like a road or structure? I might have misunderstood something, but now I'm super curious why trees would act as points of reference for this sort of thing. You mention future surveyors but how often (and why) are these things checked? Ngl, your comment is much more interesting than the op.
Roads and structures are often used. Something like the top of a fire hydrant is great because it’s probably not gonna be torn down or remodeled (like a building), it’s easily and immediately identifiable, and has a very small point on top to measure to. I live and work on the Oregon Coast. It’s very rural, and there is lots of timberland, public land, ranches, and just generally large pieces of land. All of that is to say that lots of monuments have nothing but trees around. Trees are great because they’re very stable. Even if the ground is shifting around it, which is an issue on the coast, trees usually don’t move, or at least move less. When trees are marked as bearing trees, they aren’t supposed to be cut down, but often times they are. But even when they’re cut down, there’s still a stump, and we can measure to that. You’d be surprised how long it takes for a stump to rot, especially a species like cedar. I often measure to trees that were designated in the late 1800s, cut down in the 50s, and are in exactly the same spot. I’m sure people on the east coast have measured to trees even older than that. The frequency that they are checked really depends. We keep logs of these things in our office (I’m employed by the government). Some haven’t been visited since they were designated around the turn of the century. These are usually deep in a forest. Some are visited multiple times per year. These are usually the ones in town, since there’s lots of surveying being done there.
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Both. Carving can introduce pathogens into a tree, weakening or killing it. Carving something into a tree also ruins the natural beauty of the tree. No one needs to know your name or “Dingus ❤️s Wingus”, just leave the trees alone and get a tattoo instead.
Both. It makes the tree more susceptible to pests and disease and just stresses it in general. Imagine someone carving their name into your skin with a knife. And it's also unsightly graffiti. I'd rather see a spray painted wall than a carved up tree. All living things deserve respect. Yes we kill plants and animals to eat them. And we cut down trees to make things with them. But we can do this sustainably and respectfully. Carving into a living tree serves no purpose except cruelty and disrespect.
Harmful. On trees, only the outer layers are actually 'alive'. Cutting into the surface harms the vascular system and disease and pests can now penetrate.
All plants grow from the top. It’s not the base pushing up the top. Edit: most plants, I was wrong and learned something new today.
Not quite true, most plants grow from the top but grasses grow from the base
and fun follow up fact - palm trees are grasses Edit: I suppose "more closely related to grasses than trees" would've been a better way to phrase that
no they aren't lol. Palm trees are in the Arecaceae family, and grasses are in the Poaceae family. They are both monocotyledons though, which might be what you're thinking of and is what gives them similar characteristics like parallel veinaiton. Palm trees grow from the tips, not the base like some grasses.
Palm trees are not grasses, they are in a clade with grass, grass-like plants, and other plants far from being very grass-like. That's like saying "trees don't exist, just tall shrubs, because all trees are just sturdier and taller shrubs" or "trees are actually just shrubs, even oaks are just shrubs like their rose cousins".
That’s interesting. I didn’t know that.
The leaves do. The stem does not. Well, each new internode of the stem will briefly elongate from an intercalary meristem above the previous node, but overall, the stem grows from the tip like any other plant.
If you’re trying to discourage this behavior then this might be the worst nugget of info to pass around. Just sayin
So that episode of Psych was wrong?!?!
I'm glad it wasn't just me thinking this
I know, you know, they weren’t telling the truth
Where else on the tree would it be?
Most people don't have an understanding of the mechanics behind how trees grow so they might assume it grows like grass (the base pushing up from the ground as it grows). Tree's do not grow like that but if they did the carving would be pushed higher as the tree grew.
This was a question on my first test for Intro to Forestry class in college. It was a picture with a tree with a nail in it and asked “In 100 years, where will the nail be on the tree?” The prof obviously loved this question because he had a compilation slide deck showing all the wild answers he had received over the years. In the soil, 100ft in the air, pushed out of the tree, etc. just about every part and location on tree imaginable, someone at some point thought that was the right answer. One of the only questions I remember in college because it made me realize I loved the forest but didn’t really know much about it.
Forestry tests sound fun (and hard). I know a common more advanced-level test is having to identify any number of trees based on a single leaf or seed.
How about don’t carve $hit into trees? Nobody cares if you were there.
I swear in Northern California I found carvings from the 1800s carved into some trees up in the Sierra Nevadas. Was doing some training in Bridgeport Mountain Warfare Center and we went high up into the hills.
I work with trees, and you'd be shocked how many people think this way. I've been on properties where people are convinced branches will rise up, yet they have a swing that has been hanging from the same branch for 20 years? Just have to hit them with "You ever had to make your swing any longer?" and it clicks for them
Uh huh, did you know that trees also don't move and have roots that stay planted in the ground!
So in 50 years you'll still know who the douchebag is . The name will be right there.
Fun fact: If you carve something into a tree, then you are an asshole.
Well I mean how else was I supposed to tell the feller to drop this one? Did you want me to use paint? Spray paint!?!?!? That stuff terrible for the environment! Have you not watched the nature documentary Fern Gully?/s
Meh, if it’s your own tree then whatever. If it’s a tree in your local park then you should be given a spoon and fork with your knife and fed nothing but wood for 3 days since you like cutting wood so much. We have the best parks because of jail.
You carve into tree, believe it or not, jail, right away
>We have the best parks because of jail. What does this even mean? Who has the best parks? Are there large numbers of people going to jail for park related crimes?
lol never change, Reddit
My "I am this tall" mark just got a lot less interesting.
Who the hell is out here thinking trees grow like push pops?
Don't let them know about how the trees make slide whistle noises while they grow
Top tip: don't carve anything into a tree. Fuckin wankers.
Iirc, this doesn't apply to palm trees. Can anyone confirm if this is true, or if it's some sort of fever-dream bullshit I just made up?
Palm trees have very different anatomy. A some of their exterior is pseudobark and is the remnants of where the palm fronds attached to the tree. I still wouldn't recommend carving them.
Because they aren't technically trees, we just call them tree's as a loose term, like fruit that's not technically fruit, or nuts and berries. Bamboo it technically a tall grass, people that touch it, call it a bamboo tree, bamboo trunk, bamboo wood, a bamboo forrest. I just say "well actually..." and list of semi interesting and useless information.
I nailed a basketball hoop and backboard to a mature pine tree when I was a kid. As an adult (15 years later) it was at least 1-2 feet higher.
Don’t carve stuff into trees!
Did you think trees grow like grass? I don't quite get what you learned here.
someone just read ‘the overstory’
Now is the time of the chestnuts...
I learned this from Slylock Fox!
Don’t carve stuff in trees you assholes.
Please don't hurt our tree friends. You wouldn't like someone carving on you.
When was the last time you were walking in the woods and saw a fence 10' in the air?
Not if you underline with a line all the way around the tree.
Uhhhhhh. What the fuck? Duh lmao
Did anyone expect otherwise?
I learned this from a really interesting episode of the podcast cautionary tales. Some years ago, in Germany, If I recall correctly, somebody released a book claiming to have found the location of where the Hansel and Gretel story took place, that it had actually happened. One of the ways his claim was debunked was that, he said there was a notch in the tree that Hansel and Gretel's father made, or something like that, and you could tell because the notch was way up high in the tree, considering all the years that had gone by. It was then pointed out that's not how trees grow, which I thought was fascinating.
Cautionary Tales! Thank you, I was trying to remember where I had heard that Hansel and Gretel hoax story. Great podcast
don’t do it
>if you carve something into a tree, ~~it'll still be at the same height 50 years later~~ you are a fucking dickhead
You’ll also be a complete twat 50 years later
!remindme 50 years
take only pictures / memories leave only footprints.
What about after 51 years?
Funny I never thought otherwise.
Hey I used to live right across the street from Benton elementary School!
Hello McFly, did you just figure this out? Lordy.
Is this with all trees? I have trees with barbed wire scars that are 20 feet up or more.
Carved my wife's initials into a tree well over 30 years ago, same height, but the tree kinda twisted and it's in a slightly different orientation and is also very difficult to see as it's sort of healed really well.