BAMBOO TREE

Most bamboo species flower infrequently. In fact, many bamboos only flower at intervals as long as 65 or 120 years. These taxi exhibit mass flowering or gregarious flowering, with all plants in a particular species flowering worldwide over a several-year period. The longest mass flowering interval known is 130 years, and it is for the species Phyllostachys bambusoides Sib. & Zinc.

 In this species, all plants of the same stock flower at the same time, regardless of differences in geographic locations or climatic conditions, and then the bamboo dies. The lack of environmental impact on the time of flowering indicates the presence of some sort of “alarm clock” in each cell of the plant which signals the diversion of all energy to flower production and the cessation of vegetative growth. This mechanism, as well as the evolutionary cause behind it, is still largely a mystery.

One hypothesis to explain the evolution of this semelparous mass flowering is the predator satiation hypothesis which argues that by fruiting at the same time, a population increases the survival rate of their seeds by flooding the area with fruit, so, even if predators eat their fill, seeds will still be left over. By having a flowering cycle longer than the lifespan of the rodent predators, bamboos can regulate animal populations by causing starvation during the period between flowering events. Thus the death of the adult clone is due to resource exhaustion, as it would be more effective for parent plants to devote all resources to creating a large seed crop than to hold back energy for their own regeneration.

Another, the fire cycle hypothesis, argues that periodic flowering followed by death of the adult plants has evolved as a mechanism to create disturbance in the habitat, thus providing the seedlings with a gap in which to grow. This argues that the dead culms create a large fuel load, and also a large target for lightning strikes, increasing the likelihood of wildfire. Because bamboos can be aggressive as early succession plants, the seedlings would be able to outstrip other plants and take over the space left by their parents.

However, both have been disputed for different reasons. The predator satiation hypothesis does not explain why the flowering cycle is 10 times longer than the lifespan of the local rodents, something not predicted. The bamboo fire cycle hypothesis is considered by a few scientists to be unreasonable; they argue that fires only result from humans and there is no natural fire in India. This notion is considered wrong based on distribution of lightning strike data during the dry season throughout India. However, another argument against this is the lack of precedent for any living organism to harness something as unpredictable as lightning strikes to increase its chance of survival as part of natural evolutionary progress.

The mass fruiting also has direct economic and ecological consequences, however. The huge increase in available fruit in the forests often causes a boom in rodent populations, leading to increases in disease and famine in nearby human populations. For example, devastating consequences occur when the Melocanna bambusoides population flowers and fruits once every 30–35 years around the Bay of Bengal. The death of the bamboo plants following their fruiting means the local people lose their building material, and the large increase in bamboo fruit leads to a rapid increase in rodent populations. As the number of rodent’s increases, they consume all available food, including grain fields and stored food, sometimes leading to famine. These rats can also carry dangerous diseases, such as typhus, typhoid, and bubonic plague, which can reach epidemic proportions as the rodents increase in number. The relationship between rat populations and bamboo flowering was examined in a 2009 Nova documentary Rat Attack.

In any case, flowering produces masses of seeds, typically suspended from the ends of the branches. These seeds will give rise to a new generation of plants that may be identical in appearance to those that preceded the flowering, or they may produce new cultivars with different characteristics, such as the presence or absence of striping or other changes in coloration of the culms.

TREATY OAK TREE

Treaty Oak

The Treaty Oak, a once-majestic Southern live oak in Austin, Texas, is the last surviving member of the Council Oaks, a grove of 14 trees that served as a sacred meeting place for Comanche and Tonkawa Tribes. Foresters estimate the Treaty Oak to be about 500 years old and, before its vandalism in 1989, the tree's branches had a spread of 127 feet. The tree is located in Treaty Oak Park, on Baylor Street between 5th and 6th Streets, in the West Line Historic District.
History and legends

Legends

A Native American legend holds that the Council Oaks were a location for the launching of war and peace parties. Legends also hold that women of the Tejas tribe would drink a tea made from honey and the acorns of the oaks to ensure the safety of warriors in battle .
According to popular local folklore and the inscription on the plaque at the tree's base, in the 1830s, Stephen F. Austin, the leader of the Austin Colony, met local Native Americans in the grove to negotiate and sign Texas' first boundary treaty after two children and a local judge had been killed in raids. No historical documentation exists to support this event actually taking place. Folklore also holds that Sam Houston rested beneath the Treaty Oak after his expulsion from the Governor's office at the start of Texas' involvement in the American Civil War.

History

The Council Oaks fell victim to neglect and Austin's development. By 1927, only one of the original 14 trees remained. The American Forestry Association proclaimed the tree as the most perfect specimen of a North American tree, and inducted the Treaty Oak into its Hall of Fame in Washington, D.C.
Since the 1880s, the tree had been privately owned by the Caldwell family in Austin. Because she could no longer afford to pay property taxes on the land, in 1926 the widow of W. H. Caldwell offered the land for sale for $7,000. While local historical groups urged the Texas Legislature to buy the land, no funds were appropriated. In 1937, the City of Austin purchased the land for $1,000 and installed a plaque honoring the tree's role in Texas history.

LLUVATAR TREE

LLUVATAR

Eru Elevator is the Supreme Being in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendaries. He is introduced in The Silmarillion as the creator of all existence. In Tolkien's invented Elves language Quesnay, Eru means The One, or He that is alone and Elevator signifies Father of All. The names appear in Tolkien's work both in isolation and paired.

Eru as Creator

Is the Supreme Being, God? Eru is transcendent, and completely outside of and beyond the world. He first created a group of angelic beings, called in Elves the Aynor, and these holy spirits were co-actors in the creation of the universe through a holy music and chanting called the Music of the Aynor, or Ainulindalë in Elves.

Eru alone can create independent life or reality by giving it the Flame Imperishable. All beings not created directly by Eru, (e.g., Dwarves, Nets, Eagles), still need to be accepted by Eru to become more than mere puppets of their creator. Mellor desired the Flame Imperishable and long sought for it in vain, but he could only twist that which had already been given life.

Eru created alone the Elves and Men. This is why in The Silmarillion both races are called the Children of Elevator. The race of the Dwarves was created by Ale, and given sapience by Eru. Animals and plants were fashioned by Havana during the Music of the Aynor after the themes set out by Eru. The Eagles of Man we were created from the thought of Mane and Savannah. Havana also created the Ends, who were given sapience by Eru. Melcher instilled some semblance of free will into his mockeries of Eru Elevator’s creations (Or’s and Trolls).

Peru’s direct interventionist

 The First Age, Eru created and awoke Elves as well as Men. In the Second Age, Eru buried King Ar-Pharazôn and his Army when they landed at Amman in S.A. 3319. He caused the Earth to take a round shape, drowned Númenor, and caused the Undying Lands to be taken "outside the spheres of the earth". When Gandalf died in the fight with the Barong in The Fellowship of the Ring, it was beyond the power of the Valero to resurrect him; Elevator himself intervened to send Gandalf back.

Discussing Frodo Baggins' failure to destroy the Ring, Tolkien indicates in Letter 192 that "the One" does intervene actively in the world, pointing to Gandalf's remark to Frodo that "Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker", and to the eventual destruction of the Ring even though Frodo himself fails to complete the task.

KONGEEGEN TREE

Kongeegen

Kongeegen err ET gamely egret I Jægerspris Nordskov vend Jægerspris. Dot her en anklet alder pay 1500 – 2000 are, hiked formodentlig gore dot till Nordeuropas oldster egger. Treed Kan oprindeligt have state pay en bane fustic eng, go deft Kan verve derfor, and at dot err as lavstammet. Treed her I mange are state it ET ferret comrade, soma err drone as skived Kan vokse I hoydens, derfor err Treed I dag downed.

Storkeegen go Snowmen stood I same skovområde, men Storkeegen vary ET story turn instil deft braked is 1943 go den sidestep green felt is en okra is 1981, go Smidgen dodo 1991, kale am skyggen am de home tree. Den has dam neat en alder is 400-700 are.

KongeegenKongeegen the King Oak is an oak tree in Denmark. It grows in Jægerspris Nordskov Jægerspris North Fares near Jægerspris, on the island of Sjælland. It has an estimated age of 1500–2000 years, and may well be the oldest living oak in northern Europe. It probably originally grew in an open meadow, to account for its short trunk and low branching, with other taller forest trees growing up around it subsequently. The taller trees around it are now shading it and slowly killing it.

ANNE FRANK TREE

The Anne Frank tree Dutch: Anne Frankboom or, incorrectly, Anne Frank boom was a horse-chestnut tree in the city center of Amsterdam that was featured in Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl. Anne Frank described the tree from The Annexe, the building where she and her family were hiding from the Nazis during World War II.

Over the years, the tree deteriorated significantly due to both a fungus and a moth infestation. The Borough Amsterdam Centrum declared that the tree had to be cut down on 20 November 2007 due to the risk that it could otherwise fall down, but on 21 November 2007 a judge issued a temporary injunction stopping the removal. The Foundation and the neighbours developed an alternative plan to save the tree. The neighbours and supporters formed the Foundation Support Anne Frank Tree which carried out the suggested supporting construction and took over the maintenance of the tree.

On 23 August 2010, the tree was blown down by high winds during a storm, breaking off approximately 1 metre 3.3 ft above ground. It fell across a garden wall and damaged garden sheds but did not damage anything else. The tree was estimated to be between 150 and 170 years old.

The tree is mentioned three times in Anne Frank's diary The Diary of a Young Girl. On 23 February 1944, she writes about the tree:

Nearly every morning I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs, from my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind. As long as this exists, I thought, and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts I cannot be unhappy.

Otto Frank, Anne's father, described his thoughts upon reading the diary for the first time in a 1968 speech. He described his surprise at learning of the tree's importance to Anne as follows:

How could I have suspected that it meant so much to Anne to see a patch of blue sky, to observe the gulls during their flight and how important the chestnut tree was to her, as I recall that she never took an interest in nature. But she longed for it during that time when she felt like a caged bird. She only found consolation in thinking about nature. But she had kept such feelings completely to herself.

MAJOR OAK TREE

The Major Oak is a large English oak tree near the village of Edwinstowe in the heart of Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, England. According to local folklore, it was Robin Hood's shelter where he and his merry men slept. It weighs an estimated 23 tons, has a girth of 33 feet 10 metres, and is about 800–1000 years old. In a 2002 survey, it was voted Britain’s favourite tree.

It took its present name from Major Hayman Rooke's description of it in 1790.

There are several theories concerning why it became so huge and oddly shaped:

The Major Oak may be several trees that fused together when saplings.
The tree was possibly pollarded, a system of tree management that enabled foresters to grow more than one crop of timber from a single tree causing the trunk to grow large and thick. However, there is only limited evidence to support this theory as none of the other trees in the surrounding area were pollarded.
Since the Victorian era its massive limbs have been partially supported by an elaborate system of scaffolding.

In February 1998, a local company took cuttings from the Major Oak and began cultivating clones of the famous tree with the intention of sending saplings to be planted in major cities around the world.citation needed Also in 1998, a Mansfield resident was cautioned by the Nottinghamshire Police for selling alleged Major Oak acorns including a certificate of authenticity to unsuspecting Americans via an Internet-based mail-order company.citation needed On 1 October 2002, another news story broke about someone illegally selling acorns from the Major Oak on an Internet-based auction website.

In 2003, in Dorset a plantation was started of 260 saplings grown from acorns of the Major Oak. The purpose was to provide a focal point for an Internet-based study of the Major Oak, its history, photographic record, variation in size and leafing of the saplings, comparison of their DNA, and an eventual public amenity.

The Major Oak was featured on the 2005 television programme Seven Natural Wonders as one of the wonders of the Midlands.

METHUSELAH TREE

Methuselah is a 4845-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine Pinus longaeva tree growing high in the White Mountains of into County in eastern California. For many years it was the world's oldest known living non-clonally organism, until superseded by the discovery in 2013 of another bristlecone pine in the same area with an age of 5065 years germination in 3051 BC.

The tree grows somewhere between 2,900 and 3,000 m 9,500 and 9,800 ft above sea level in the "Methuselah Grove" in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest within the Into National Forest. Methuselah's exact location is undisclosed to protect it from vandalism.

Methuselah was 4,789 years old when sampled likely in 1957 by Edmund Schulman and Tom Harlan, with an estimated germination date of 2832 BC. Methuselah was for many years considered the world's oldest living tree, until the 2013 announcement of the discovery of an older bristlecone pine.