Your Scottish oaks are part of the same ecosystems as this great tree: the wood pasture, or woodland pasture, ecosystem once dominated much of Europe and parts of North American and South Africa. It was created and maintained by large herbivores, especially wisent and American bison.
How many Scots does it take to hug an ancient Dalkeith oak? I have never been in the company of oaks with such massive girth. Thank you for protecting these awesomely magnificent trees!!
I'm not sure anyone has ever officially found out how many people are needed to hug an ancient oak in Dalkeith Country Park. That would be an interesting exercise.
I was teaching a group of kindergartners about the trees in their school yard, which had many venerable trees. We decided to measure the tree girth in kindergartner units: the largest was 9 kindergartners. It’s as valid a unit as centimeters.
These are not typically adventitious branches (branches from newly created buds) but from trace buds, clusters of stem cells that grow a bit each year but remain under the bark. They are called trace buds because they have a vascular trace all the way to the pith. It can be difficult to discern a trace bud from an adventitious bud, but in my experience, the vast majority of new branches are from trace buds. I’ll make myself a reminder to write a note about this.
When I lived in Australia, a part of the city where I lived and surrounded country site had burned down. The remaining trees looked like sticks. But a year later those stickes were covered by a blanket of leaves. Was a strange but encouraging sight.
Being long lived means that you have to survive fire and lightning. In Australia the Eucalyptus benefits from the random natural fires, it suffers under human-controlled burning regimes.
We anthropomorphise our trees and think they only survive through our protection. Sometimes that does more harm than good.
Fascinating! If a tree of mine got hit by lightning and looked like one big stick, I would assume it was a goner and remove it. I had no idea it could come back so fully. Although, I guess I might have to remove it anyway just because I'm in dense suburbia where large, unhealthy trees could present a risk to people.
Lightning is a really important cause of tree damage and mortality here in the Bluegrass. I realize that I cannot predict the outcome for a tree that has been struck, whether it dies or recovers. I'll discuss this more in a future Our Trees story.
What an amazing tree! Thanks for the explanation too, i didn't know that.
Near Edinburgh, Dalkeith Country Park has a lot of ancient oak trees that are also quite magnificent.
Your Scottish oaks are part of the same ecosystems as this great tree: the wood pasture, or woodland pasture, ecosystem once dominated much of Europe and parts of North American and South Africa. It was created and maintained by large herbivores, especially wisent and American bison.
How many Scots does it take to hug an ancient Dalkeith oak? I have never been in the company of oaks with such massive girth. Thank you for protecting these awesomely magnificent trees!!
I'm not sure anyone has ever officially found out how many people are needed to hug an ancient oak in Dalkeith Country Park. That would be an interesting exercise.
I was teaching a group of kindergartners about the trees in their school yard, which had many venerable trees. We decided to measure the tree girth in kindergartner units: the largest was 9 kindergartners. It’s as valid a unit as centimeters.
There’s a sycamore is Sunderland Massachusets called Buttonbush that takes five people to embrace.
Five adults.
5 adults, likely some with Highland blood.
There’s much to be said for adventitious budding during times of stress. Bravo oaks.
These are not typically adventitious branches (branches from newly created buds) but from trace buds, clusters of stem cells that grow a bit each year but remain under the bark. They are called trace buds because they have a vascular trace all the way to the pith. It can be difficult to discern a trace bud from an adventitious bud, but in my experience, the vast majority of new branches are from trace buds. I’ll make myself a reminder to write a note about this.
Interesting. Stranger than fiction.
What a beautiful tree. How exciting it is to have one that is so old still around so us humans can ponder their beauty in amazement.
When I lived in Australia, a part of the city where I lived and surrounded country site had burned down. The remaining trees looked like sticks. But a year later those stickes were covered by a blanket of leaves. Was a strange but encouraging sight.
Like your tree, they recovered quite well.
Being long lived means that you have to survive fire and lightning. In Australia the Eucalyptus benefits from the random natural fires, it suffers under human-controlled burning regimes.
We anthropomorphise our trees and think they only survive through our protection. Sometimes that does more harm than good.
Fascinating! If a tree of mine got hit by lightning and looked like one big stick, I would assume it was a goner and remove it. I had no idea it could come back so fully. Although, I guess I might have to remove it anyway just because I'm in dense suburbia where large, unhealthy trees could present a risk to people.
Lightning is a really important cause of tree damage and mortality here in the Bluegrass. I realize that I cannot predict the outcome for a tree that has been struck, whether it dies or recovers. I'll discuss this more in a future Our Trees story.