Trees and Pipes

It is very easy to count the age of trees growing in the countries of higher latitude (In Poland for instance :) where winter is snowy and summer is warm and sunny. After you cut a pine you are left with the low trunk with beautiful light and dark rings on it. If You count either light or dark ones you will get the very close-to-truth age of that tree. I always like to do it as a child. As a small boy I used to live on the country side next to the big big forest and my grandpa was a carpenter. I am still addicted to the smell of freshly cut tree : )

And today i am working with them again. In a scientific way. I study the microscopic anatomy of growth ring boundaries: Laurus nobilis (Bay Laurel) is one of the best example. It is a spice used in the kitchen, a simbol of Apollo and a very valueable wood piece for scientist like me : ) - it shows very well the microscopic structure of rings (look in horizonthally manner at the cross section below):



During live-bringing spring plants produce a lot of wide pipes in order to supply a sufficient amount of water to hard-working leaves. It is the best time to grow, compete with other trees, satisfy all the creatures living on them, collect food for the winter time and most important - to reproduce. The big white spots in the picture above stand for pipes lumen - in botany those pipes are called vessels or conduits.

At the time autumn is coming production slows down. Vessels and other neighbour cells go smaller and thicker. They start to produce a very resistant walls in order to stand still across windy and freezingly cold winter. Loads of snow get collected on the branches and they can not brake down. The tree has to get armed up on time.

And this is the way the rings are painted on the trunk. Part with widely open and thin-walled vessels is light (light red on the picture) and the stressed-up, thick-walled latewood appears as dark rings (dark red on the picture). Passing years press down their marks not only on humans : )


Source: http://insidewood.lib.ncsu.edu/search.3

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