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.

CAESARS BOOM TREE

Caesars boom Caesar's Tree is a very old tree whose precise age is unknown but is believed to be over 2000 years in age. The ancient tree grows in Lo, a town in Lo-Renege, a municipality of the province of West-Vlaanderen of Belgium. Its species is Taxus baccarat, common name European Yew. The tree is designated a national monument of Belgium.

According to a long-held local legend, Julius Caesar stopped at this tree during his military campaign in the area en route to Britannia in 55 BC, tied his horse to it, and took a nap in the shadow of its foliage.  According to one source, although the road passing by the tree might date from the era of Imperial Rome, it is not likely that Julius Caesar came to this area.

 The tree grows beside the last extant city gate, of four medieval arches built in the 14th century and restored both in 18Z2 and 1991 at the time the town was less than 400 meters in diameter. Caesars boom stands adjacent to a house called Het Dumber the Draught-board House which written sources from 1499 show once housed the oldest of the four breweries which used to exist in the town of Lo.

THE PINE TREE

Pines are native to a majority of the Northern Hemisphere see List of pines by region and have been introduced throughout most temperate and subtropical regions of the world where they are grown as timber and cultivated as ornamental plants in parks and gardens. One species Sumatran pine crosses the equator in Sumatra to. In North America, A number of introduced species have become invasive, threatening native ecosystems.

Pines are evergreen, coniferous resinous trees or rarely shrubs growing, with the majority of species reaching 15–45 m tall. The smallest are Siberian dwarf pine and Potosi pinyo, and the tallest is a 268.35-foot 81.79-meter tall ponderosa pine located in southern Oregon's Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.

The bark of most pines is thick and scaly, but some species have thin, flaking bark. The branches are produced in regular pseudo whorls, actually a very tight spiral but appearing likes a ring of branches arising from the same point. Many pines are uninodal, producing just one such whorl of branches each year, from buds at the tip of the year's new shoot, but others are multinodal, producing two or more whorls of branches per year.

 The spiral growth of branches, needles, and cone scales are arranged in Fibonacci number ratios. Citation needed the new spring shoots are sometimes called candles they are covered in brown or whitish bud scales and point upward at first, then later turn green and spread outward. These candles offer foresters a means to evaluate fertility of the soil and vigour of the trees.

ROGALIN TREE

Rogalin Landscape Park Rogaliński Park Krajobrazowy is a protected area Landscape Park in west-central Poland, covering an area of 126.4 square kilometres 48.8 sq mi. It includes two nature reserves.

The Park lies within Greater Poland Voivodeship: in Poznan County and Orem County. It stretches along the banks of the Warta river, and takes its name from the village of Rogalin, which is famous for its historic palace of the Kaczynski family and oak trees.

About 2000 magnificent oaks are found on the banks of the river Warta near Rogalin, among numerous oxbow lakes. It is Europe’s largest group of monumental oak trees, located within the Rogalin Landscape Park. Their trunks reach a circumference of up to 9 metres, and all those reaching over 2 m in circumference are protected by law.

Rogalin is a village in western Poland, situated on the Warta River. It lies approximately 7 kilometres (4 mi) east of the town of Molina, and 19 km (12 mi) south of the city of Poznan.

Rogalin is primarily famous for its 18th-century baroque palace of the Kaczynski family, and the adjacent Kaczynski Art Gallery, housing a permanent exhibition of Polish and international paintings (including Paul Delaroche and Claude Monet and the famous Jan Matejko's large-scale painting Joanna d’Arcy, see a fragment below). The gallery was started by Edward Alexander Kaczynski. Rogalin is also known for its putatively 1000-year-old oak trees Polish: Debby Rogaliński on the banks of the Warta.

The last owner of the estate was Count Edward Bernard Kaczynski, who in 1979–1986 was President of the Polish Republic in exile. His coffin is deposited in the Kaczynski Mausoleum, under the historical chapel in Rogalin. In his testament, Count Kaczynski bequeathed his family palace in Rogalin and his library to the Polish people.

Much of the surrounding area forms a protected area known as Rogalin Landscape Park.

GERNIKAKO ARBELA TREE

Gernikako Arbela the tree of Gernikako in Basque is an oak tree that symbolizes traditional freedoms for the Biscayan people and by extension for the Basque people as a whole. The Lords of Biscay including kings of Castile and Car list pretenders to the throne swore to respect the Biscayan liberties under it, and the modern Lehendakari of the Basque Country swears his charge there.

The tree

In the middle ages, representatives of the villages of Biscay would hold assemblies under local big trees. As time passed, the role of separate assemblies was superseded by the Guernica assembly in 1512, and its oak would acquire a symbolic meaning, with actual assemblies being held in a purpose-built hermitage-house the current building is from 183.

The known specimens form a dynasty:

The father, planted in the 14th century, lasted 450 years

The old tree 1742–1892, re-planted in 1811. The trunk now is held in a temple in the surrounding garden.

The third (1858–2004), re-planted in 1860, survived the bombing of Guernica in 1937 but had to be replaced because of a fungus. The gardeners of the Biscayan government keep several spare trees grown from the tree's acorns.

The current one (from 1986) was replanted on the site of its father on 25 February 2005.

The tree's significance is illustrated by an event which occurred shortly after the Guernica bombings. When the François troops took the town, the Trico of Begonia, formed by Carlos volunteers from Biscay, put an armed guard around the tree to protect it against the Falangists, who had wanted to fell this symbol of Basque nationalism.

An oak tree is depicted on the heraldic arms of Biscay and subsequently on the arms of many of the towns of Biscay. An oak leaf logo is being used by the local government of Biscay. The logo of the Basque nationalist party Eskom Alkartasuna has one half red and the other green, the colours of the Basque flag. An old version of the logo of the nationalist youth organisation Jarrai also displays oak leaves.

OLD TJIKKO TREE

Old Tjikko is a 9,550-year-old Norway spruce tree, located on Fulufjället Mountain of Dalarna province in Sweden. Old Tjikko is the world's oldest known living individual clone tree. However, there are many examples of much older clone colonies multiple trees connected by a common root system, such as Pando, estimated to be over 80,000 years old.The age of the tree was determined by carbon dating of the root system under the tree, not by dendrochronology, or counting tree rings.

 The trunk itself is estimated to be only a few hundred years old, but the tree as a whole may have survived for much longer due to a process known as layering when a branch comes in contact with the ground, it sprouts a new root, or vegetative cloning when the trunk dies but the root system is still alive, it may sprout a new trunk.The oldest living non-clone tree, verified by dendrochronology, is 5064 years old as of 2014 the former record was held by Methuselah (4847). Both trees are Great Basin Bristlecone Pine located in California. Vegetative cloning and reproduction is common in many plants, such as the creosote bush see King Clone, estimated from growth rate to be almost 12,000 years old.

 Many other plants also may take advantage of this process either exclusively or in tandem with sexual reproduction, but dating or estimating the age of these organisms may not be possible without evidence e.g., old roots, ancient remains, consistent growth rates.Discovery and detailsOld Tjikko is estimated to be at least 9,550 years old, making it the world's oldest known individual vegetative cloned tree.

 It stands 5 metres (16 ft) tall and is located on Fulufjället Mountain of Dalarna province in Sweden For thousands of years, the tree appeared in a stunted shrub formation also known as a krummholz formation due to the harsh extremes of the environment in which it lives. During the warming of the last century, the tree has sprouted into a normal tree formation. The man who discovered the tree, Leif Cullman Professor of Physical Geography at Umea University, has attributed this growth spurt to global warming, and given the tree its nickname Old Tjikko after his late dog. 

BANYAN TREE

A Banyan also Banana is a fig that starts its life as an epiphyte a plant growing on another plant when its seeds germinate in the cracks and crevices on a host tree or on structures like buildings and bridges. Banyan often refers specifically to the Indian banyan or focus benghalensis, which is the national tree of the Republic of India, though the term has been generalized to include all figs that share a characteristic life cycle, and systematically to refer to the subgenus Urostigma.

Like other fig species including the common edible fig focus carica, banyans bear multiple fruit in structures called sinkers. The focus sincere supplies shelter and food for fig wasps and in turn, the trees are dependent on the fig wasps for pollination.

The seeds of banyans are dispersed by fruit-eating birds. The seeds are small, and most banyans grow in forests, so that a plant germinating from a seed those lands on the ground is unlikely to survive. However, many seeds land on branches and stems of trees or on buildings. When those seeds germinate they send roots down towards the ground, and may envelop part of the host tree or building structure, giving banyans the casual name of strangler . The strangling growth habit is found in a number of tropical forest species, particularly of the genus Focus that compete for light.  Any Focus species showing this habit may be termed a strangler.

The leaves of the banyan tree are large, leathery, glossy green and elliptical in shape. Like most fig-trees, the leaf bud is covered by two large scales. As the leaf develops the scales fall. Young leaves have an attractive reddish tinge.

Older banyan trees are characterized by their aerial prop roots that grow into thick woody trunks which with age can become indistinguishable from the main trunk. Old trees can spread out laterally, using these prop roots to cover a wide area. In some species the effect is for the props to develop into a sort of forest covering a considerable area, every trunk connected directly or indirectly to the central trunk. The topology of this structure of interconnection inspired the name of the hierarchical computer network operating system Banyan.

In a banyan that envelops a support tree the mesh of roots growing round the support tree eventually applies very considerable pressure and commonly kills the tree. Such an enveloped dead tree eventually rots away so that the banyan becomes a columnar tree with a hollow central core. In jungles such hollows are particularly desirable shelters to many animals.

BARTEK TREE

Bartek Polish: Bartholomew is an ancient oak tree in Poland. It grows in Zagnańsk near Kielce in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains. Its age, previously estimated at up to 1200 years, has recently been established to be 650–670 years, with a corer used to extract a sample for a ring count. An accurate count is impossible, as Barter’s interior has hollowed with age. There are several older trees in Poland, both oaks and use some over 1000 years old, yet none of them has matched Barter’s fame.

The 30-metre tall Bartek measures 13.5 metres in girth at its base. Its crown spreads about 40 metres. King Casmir 1310–1370 is known to have held court under Bartek. King Jan III Sobieski rested under the oak on his way back from the Battle of Vienna (1683). He reputedly hid a Turkish sabre, a harquebus and a bottle of wine inside it to commemorate the victory.

The oak is still alive, but is in decline. In 1829 it had 14 main branches, today only 8 are left. In the 1920s the hollow inside the trunk was covered with limestone. The limestone was removed in the 1960s, replaced with resin-based filling and covered with bark. The living sapwood is very thin (5–20 cm). The weakened trunk has begun to lean toward the heavy branches.

“Bartek” oak which, according to various sources, is between 700 and 1000 years old, belongs to the most famous and most widely admired monuments of nature in Poland. The legend has it that Polish kings, Boleslaw Krzywousty, Kazimierz Weekly or Jan III Sobieski (said to have hidden royal treasures in the hollow of the mighty oak) used to rest in its shade.

The old “Barter’s” measurements are pretty impressive: it is 30 m tall and its circumference and diameter are 10 m and over 3 m respectively. Right next to it grows “Barter’s” offspring, a young oak, which was planted during the celebrations of the 1000 years of the Polish State.