Tree Essay

A tree is a tall, woody plant with branches. Trees can survive for hundreds of years. The oldest tree discovered to date is around 5000 years old. The oldest tree found in the United Kingdom is approximately 1000 years old. The four essential components of a tree are the roots, trunk, branches, and leaves.

A tree's roots are generally found beneath the earth. This is not always the case. The mangrove tree's beginnings are frequently underwater. A single tree has several roots. The roots transport nutrients and water from the ground to the tree's leaves via the trunk and branches. They can also inhale air. As with the banyan tree, roots can sometimes be specialized into aerial roots that can offer support.

The trunk is the tree's primary body. The bark that covers the trunk protects it from injury. Branches sprout from the stem and spread out, allowing the leaves to get more sunlight.

The leaves of a tree are typically green, although they can be a variety of colours, shapes, and sizes. The leaves absorb sunshine and use water and nourishment from the roots to develop and replicate the tree.

Trees and bushes absorb water and carbon dioxide and emit oxygen in the form of sugars when exposed to sunshine. This is the polar opposite of what mammals do when they breathe. Plants, like mammals, need oxygen for respiration, requiring oxygen and carbon dioxide to survive. Trees are renewable resources because if one is chopped down, another can sprout in its place.

Parts of Trees

A tree's roots, trunks, branches, twigs, and leaves are components. Tree stems are composed mostly of support and transport tissues. Wood comprises xylem cells, while the bark consists of phloem and other tissues that are not part of the vascular cambium.

Growth of the Trunk

As a tree grows, growth rings may form as new wood is put around old wood. In locations with a seasonal climate, wood harvested at different periods of the year may have light and dark rings that alternate. In temperate and tropical locations, growth rings are formed yearly with a single wet-dry season alternation, with each pair of bright and dark circles representing one year of growth. Each year, there may be two pairs of light and dark rings in places with two wet and dry seasons, and a new growth ring may appear with each rainfall.

Tropical rainforest zones with a steady year-round climate see ongoing growth. There are no noticeable growth rings, and the wood grain has not changed. These rings may be counted in species with yearly rings to determine the tree's age. Because the patterns of ring thickness are so different, wood collected from trees in the past may be dated in this manner. This is called dendrochronology. Only a few tropical plants can be precisely dated in this way.

Roots

A tree's roots are nearly always underground, generally in a ball-shaped zone under the trunk that extends no deeper than the tree's height. Roots can grow above ground as well as deep down. Some roots are a few metres long, while others are several metres long.

The sections above the ground are supported by the roots, which keep the tree straight and prevent it from tumbling in heavy winds.

The roots absorb water and minerals from the earth. Trees would be tiny or perish if fungus did not aid nutrient intake. Most trees have a favourite fungus with which they associate for this function.

Branches

Above the earth, the stem raises the leaf-bearing branches, vying for sunlight with other plant species. The branches' form promotes the leaves' exposure to sunlight in all trees. Branches begin large and dense near the trunk and become increasingly smaller near the stem as they grow from the stem. Branches split into smaller branches, sometimes repeatedly, until they are pretty little at the end. Twigs are the short ends of the branches.

Leaves

A tree's leaves are held in place by its branches, and leaves are often retained at the extremities of branches, while some have the leaves along the branches. Photosynthesis and gas exchange are the primary activities of leaves. A leaf usually is flat and thin to enable as much light as possible to reach the green sections of the cells, which convert sunlight, atmospheric carbon dioxide, and water from the roots into glucose and oxygen. This mechanism accounts for the bulk of a tree's biomass.

To manage the exchange of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water vapour with the environment, most leaves include stomata, which open and close.

Evergreen trees have leaves all year, whereas deciduous trees shed their leaves. As the weather cools, deciduous trees and shrubs shed their leaves. The leaves will change colour before this happens and grow back in the spring.

Classification

A tree is a plant form that can be found in a variety of plant orders and families. Trees exhibit a variety of growth styles, leaf type and shape, bark characteristics, and organs.

In response to comparable difficulties, the tree shape has altered independently in unrelated groups of plants (for the tree). The number of tree kinds in the globe may be one-fourth of all living plant types, with around 100,000 trees. Most tree species thrive in tropical areas of the planet. Botanists (those who study plants) have yet to investigate many of these locations, leaving species distinctions and ranges unknown.

Tree ferns, horsetails, and lycophytes were the earliest trees flourishing in forests during the Carboniferous epoch; tree ferns still exist, but horsetails and lycophytes are not tree-like. Conifers, ginkgos, cycads, and other gymnosperms emerged later in the Triassic Period, followed by flowering plants in the Cretaceous Period. Today, most tree species are flowering plants (Angiosperms) and conifers.

A grove or copse is a small collection of trees growing together, whereas a forest is a terrain covered by a thick growth of trees. Several biotopes are mainly defined by the trees that occupy them; examples include rainforest and taiga (such as ecozones). A savanna is a grassland area with trees spread or separated across it that is grazed or burned over regularly. An old-growth or ancient woodland is an old forest in the UK. A sapling is a relatively young tree.

Uses

Lumber & Paper

Softwood tree species such as cedar, pine, hemlock, and spruce are used to make houses and furnishings. Rough timber, which includes ash, oak, cherry, redwood, and maple, requires a bit more shaping. Trees are also milled for plywood and crushed and pulped for paper.

Shade

Large trees with spreading branches are good for providing shade, lowering heating expenditures when planted near your home, cooling areas on the lawn, and sheltering smaller plants. Shade trees include maple, ash, northern catalpa, honey locust, sweetgum, Kentucky coffee tree, sycamore, tulip, linden, oak, and elm species. Shade trees also provide attraction to the scene.

Medicine & Cooking

Trees are used to make some medications. The allspice tree, native to the Caribbean and parts of Mexico, produces berries that, when crushed, are used in cooking and used in many colic treatments. A Malaysian palm tree has a seed that can cure animal worm infestations. Poplar buds can be used to make cold tablets and ointments. The Benjamin tree of Java is utilized in bronchitis inhalers. Camphor trees are mined in Japan and China for muscular ache ointments. The bark of dogwood trees can be used as a replacement for quinine. Strychnine is produced by the Asian nux vomica tree and is used as a cardiac stimulant in combination with other drugs. The bark of the sassafras tree can be used as a diuretic.

Records

Oldest Forests

The Devonian epoch (386 million years ago) produced the first fossilized trees. They were discovered in an abandoned quarry in Cairo, New York. The forest was once so extensive that it extended beyond Pennsylvania.

This find is two to three million years older than the previous oldest forest discovered in New York State at Gilboa.

Stoutest Trees

Glencoe baobab, Limpopo Province, South Africa, has the most oversized diameter of any living single-trunk species: 15.9 m (52 ft). This tree split in November 2009, and the Sunland Baobab (South Africa) may now be the stoutest baobab, with a diameter of 10.64 m and a circumference of 33.4 m.

Some trees generate several trunks that grow in tandem. The holy fig is an excellent example, with adventitious roots that stretch down from the branches and bulk out when they reach the ground to create new trunks; a single sacred fig tree can have hundreds of these trunks.

Height

Scientists in the United Kingdom and Malaysia claim to have discovered the world's most giant tropical tree, over 100 metres tall (328 feet).

A coast redwood measuring 115.85 metres (380.1 feet) tall at Redwood National Park, California, was formerly the tallest but may no longer exist.

Australia's tallest trees are eucalypts, of which there are over 700 kinds. It may reach over 300 feet and has a narrow, straight trunk.

Damage

The three major causes of tree damage are deforestation, biotic and abiotic. Insects that dig into the tree, deer that rub the bark off the trunk, and fungi that attach themselves to the tree are examples of biotic sources.

Abiotic factors include lightning, car strikes, and building activity. Construction operations can result in a variety of damage causes, such as grade changes that restrict root aeration, spills involving hazardous compounds such as cement or petroleum products, or cutting branches or roots. Humans also harm trees at significant levels.

Both types of damage can cause trees to become dangerous, and the phrase "hazard trees" is often used by arborists and industry groups like power line operators. Hazard trees are those that, due to disease or other circumstances, are more prone to falling or having tree sections fall during windstorms.

Trees are analogous to humans; both can withstand significant harm and survive, but even little stress can result in mortality. Arborists understand that established trees will not accept any considerable damage to their root systems. Despite this, most individuals and construction experts are unaware of how easily a tree may be destroyed.

One source of misunderstanding concerning tree damage from construction is the dormancy of trees throughout the winter. Another concern is that trees may not exhibit signs of wear for 24 months or more after the harm. As a result, those unfamiliar with tree care may fail to connect the underlying cause with the subsequent damaging consequence.

Various organizations have long recognized the significance of building operations that might harm tree health, resulting in financial losses due to tree destruction and replacement expenses. As a result, conventional tree management approaches for construction operations have been widely defined and tested. Some of the precautions and guidelines to be followed are given below:

• Creating a tree protection strategy
• Making a strategy for remediation (making damage suitable)
• Creating tree-protection zones (TPZs)
• Assessing tree damage after construction
• Implementing the remedial strategy

Culture

The tree has long served as a cultural emblem. Popular symbols include the World Tree, Yggdrasil, and the Tree of Life. The tree is frequently used to represent nature or the environment. A popular misconception is that trees obtain most of their bulk from the earth when 99 per cent (%) of a tree's mass originates from the air.

Tree of Goodwill

A Wish Tree is a single tree that may be identified by its species, position, or appearance and is used as a target for wishes and offerings from people worldwide. These trees are designated as having a specific religious or spiritual worth. According to tradition, worshipers offer votive gifts to fulfil the request of a spirit, saint or goddess of nature.

Tree Worship

It refers to the inclination of various communities throughout history to revere or mythologize trees. Trees have been assigned deep and holy meanings over the years and have played an essential part in many of the world's mythology and religions. Humans regard trees as potent symbols of development, decay, and resurrection when they see their growth and death, the suppleness of their branches, the sensitiveness, and the yearly (every year) decay and revival of their leaves. The 'world tree' is the most ancient cross-cultural symbolic portrayal of the universe's formation.

The World Tree

It is referred to as a tree, with branches reaching into the sky and roots spreading deep into the soil, that may represent a link between heaven, earth, and the underworld, connecting above and below. It is also a feminine symbol, representing nourishment, and a male, phallic sign, representing another union.

As a result, many myths throughout the world include the notion of the World Tree, a vast tree that works as an Axis Mundi, supporting the universe and connecting the heavens, earth, and Hades. The tree Yggdrasil from Norse mythology is the most well-known example in European mythology.

The world tree, which represents the four cardinal directions, is also a significant figure in Mesoamerican mythology. The motif of the tree of life is very strongly related to the notion of the global tree.

Conclusion

Trees are essential in our lives and provide a constant environmental benefit. We have failed to protect them in some manner, which may explain why we are seeing global warming, severe pollution, and other dire consequences of deforestation. Trees must be adequately cared for and maintained for humanity to exist on our planet. We must urge people to plant more trees, and it is for our benefit, and the sooner we realize this, the better.