TripleFunBooks

Chapter 4 / Fun Facts

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Pine Needles

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So instead of flipping from side to side, I was slammed into the sharp-needled branches.

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Pine needles are the leaves of pine trees. They can vary in length from one to 18 inches (2.5 to 46 cm), depending on the species. It takes from three to five years for them to fully mature.

 

Pine trees are evergreens in the conifer family, so they have needles all year long. But that doesn’t mean that pine needles don’t die and fall from the tree. Pine trees shed their “leaves” on a staggered basis, so there are always some green ones to produce food for the tree through photosynthesis. Some pines have needles that only live one year, while others grow needles that last for decades.

 

When lots of needles fall to the forest floor, they can create a thick mat that chokes out seedlings from other types of trees. Lightning can also set this mat on fire, which is another way to eliminate competing seedlings. So the needles help pines dominate in many forests.

 

Needles also play a role in how widespread pine trees are throughout the world. They are found all over the Northern Hemisphere. And they thrive where they have been introduced in the Southern Hemisphere—including Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and South America.

 

Unlike flat leaves, pine needles don’t have much surface area. This keeps them from drying out so quickly. The waxy coating on needles further slows dehydration, which is why pine trees generally require so little water. But when the rain does pour down, less surface area helps the needles shed water efficiently. And the waxy coating allows clumps of needles to shake off heavy snowfalls in a good gust of wind. So it is the shape of pine needles that allow the trees to thrive in dry and rainy climates at sea level and as high as 13,000 feet (4,000 meters). 

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Tree Roots

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The spider’s bite was enough to hold up my tree, just like roots do for our trees around here.

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A tree’s root system is more interesting and not nearly as deep as most people think. 

 

When a tree falls over in the forest or a landscaping company digs up a tree to plant somewhere else, you can see what is called a root ball. It is usually fairly shallow when compared to the height of the tree. And what you see in the root ball is only a fraction of the story. 

 

As seedlings, trees have a single taproot to anchor the plant in place. But this changes as the tree starts to grow. The main root becomes many smaller structural roots right around the trunk. These are the ones you usually see in the root ball. They have been cut away from a vast network of tiny roots that spread out from all sides of the tree.

 

Research shows that 90% of a tree’s root system grows within 2 feet (60 cm) of the surface. While some supporting roots can burrow 6-10 feet (2-3 meters), the majority are shallow tentacles known as feeder roots. These can extend as far as 15 feet (5 meters) or more from the trunk. In a forest setting, feeder roots from individual trees intermingle, helping to further support all of the trees.

 

Feeder roots are about the thickness of paper clip wire. But they are the real workhorses of the whole root system. Feeder roots team up with fungi that grow on or in the roots to absorb moisture and nutrients from the soil. Water, oxygen and minerals are more abundant near the surface, which is why these roots are so shallow. The bigger roots then distribute this food to the rest of the tree. Feeder roots may die and be replaced on a regular basis, while structural roots continue growing.

 

The next time you draw a tree, you can make it more true to life with lots of shallow roots that grow to the sides, not just below, the tree.