Note the young pine tree at the left - its roots are in the bank at the far right (part of the bottom part of its trunk can be seen growing to the left, close to the bank, at about a 45 degree angle); when it was very young the pine was somehow bent way over to the left (strong wind, bank erosion by wave action, something fell on it, etc). The trunk tends to grow in the opposite direction of the force of gravity, a phenomenon known as gravitropism - you can see that as the trunk grew 'upward' it kept curving towards the vertical ( which it hasn't quite reached yet); Phototropism (growing toward light) played an important role in making the tree also tend to grow in a horizontal direction to get away from the intense shade of the larger trees along the bank. The primary force causing this tree to adopt this unusual growth pattern was gravitropism, tho. Photo from Manning Lake. A web site explaining this phemonmenon is http://herbarium.desu.edu/pfk/page8/page9/page9.html
· Date: Wed November 3, 2010 · Views: 6624 · Filesize:32.0kb, 491.5kb · Dimensions: 1555 x 1870 ·
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Jonas Pilot Senior Member
Registered: April 2005 Location: Wolfeboro, New Hampshire is my home, 24-7-365 Posts: 1,686
Wed November 3, 2010 3:16pm
Good info. Thanks for sharing. It reminds me of what a forester once told me, " All we do is manage the amount of light that gets in".
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