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Daily Speculations The Web Site of Victor Niederhoffer & Laurel Kenner Department of Trees and Markets One of the great evolutionary success stories, trees first appear in the fossil record about 400 million years ago. Today's forests cover 30% of the earth's surface. As a life form, they have survived ice ages, global warming periods and countless fires, droughts and floods. Some individuals live for more than 2,000 years. Daily Speculations and its contributors find trees of much interest in their never-ending search for new tradable ideas. Some of their approaches appear below.
(Left: Vic Niederhoffer with daughter Kira at Kew Gardens, London, 2003)\ |
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10/11/04
A technical word from Jack Tierney, president of the Old Speculators’ Club (may his fishing and farming always be in the lead):
On trees, I have a few observations. First, as much of our 29 acres is wooded, we have thousands of trees; very few, though, are on level land. Many are found in and ringing around steep ravines, and many more are far out back on ever descending acreage broken by an occasion up-thrust hillock. From the edge of the back woods to our property line is about 1,500 feet and the level at the line is about 100 feet lower than at the edge.
The first thing I noticed when moving here was that in our several ravines, all trees (mostly red or white oaks with a sprinkling of cedars [always dead or severely stunted in the woods], some hickory, some small cottonwoods, an occasional redbud, and a few towering beech, and only two black walnuts) seem to rise to the same height. Closer examination reveals, however, that those in the ravine are taller than those that surround it … and the further down the ravine, the taller the trees. In some cases I estimate the trees at the bottom are anywhere from 20 to 50 feet taller than those that surround the edge.
However, with the exception of the beeches, the taller interior trees do not have a correspondingly thicker trunk. They are about the same width as those at the top, but, in many cases, have no branches or no surviving branches until they reach a level where the outlying trees begin their growth.
There are many fallen trees and, with two exceptions, all in the interior. This could be attributed to the structural weaknesses due to consistent protection that you have referred to. On the other hand, the causes may be at the root level. Growing on the side of a hill and in accordance with hydrotropism, most of the root structure goes downhill; there is very little anchorage on the uphill side.
Unlike the trees at the edge which have almost 360 degrees of anchor, those on the down slope rarely have more than 180 degrees (which may partially explain the relatively slender trunks). In any case, a strong wind from the uphill direction will create an inordinate amount of stress on the taller, semi-anchored interior trees.
Of further interest, I found it is rare for one tree to be blown over...or, better stated, it appears that one tree blown over will, if falling in the right direction, take down its neighbor, which in turn can create a domino effect. In '99, a "straight-line wind" went through our back woods. On my property alone there are over 40 trees down measuring at least 30 feet tall. If viewed from the air this line of fallen trees appears to be little wider than 75 feet but carries on for close to a half mile across four adjacent pieces of property.
What I can't determine in many cases is which trees were blown over and which ones fell only when a neighbor crashed down upon them or their branches. In four cases I found trees that fell against another but, unable to knock it down, remain leaning against it.
It would seem that the tree still standing, already partially dislodged from its rooting and supporting the tremendous weight of the other, would eventually fall too. However, in two cases (one of which I was fortunate enough to observe) this did not happen. When the crisis stage is reached, one hears a series of loud cracks (this gets the dogs' attention, as they think that the noise is caused by squirrels). Over a period that may stretch for several hours, the cracks become less frequent but more authoritative. In the case I observed, I expected to see the still-rooted tree crack and topple over. Instead, it was the "leaner" which, with time and decay, cracked along its trunk and plunged to the ground in two large pieces. The only apparent damage to the still-living tree was the loss of some lower branches as the broken top of the deceased tree plunged to the ground.
One final observation is that I found no uprooted beeches. But I found several that were snapped off about 40 feet up. In none of these cases was the top half of the tree lying on the ground immediately adjacent to its bottom half...most were a good ten feet away. When similar snapping occurs with an oak, the top portion often seems to maintain some connection with the bottom so that the resulting figure looks like a right-angle triangle (in some cases the connection is sufficient to keep the leaves green throughout the summer). The beeches must have a much deeper and better root system, but when they are overstressed they snap with a vengeance.
The Speculator's Tree Bibliography
10/07/04: Ancient Trees, by Victor Niederhoffer