How do trees do this?

[sloth]

Is anyone able to explain (or point me in the direction of an explanation) how-

A trunk is injured/ branch removed;

The wound includes, and the new woody tissue gets to the point of sealing off/making contact with itself;

The bark of the two sides meets, and then instead of bark on bark, the cambiums fuse.

I wonder the same about twin stems with included bark which fuse to form a continuous woody cylinder?

How does the tree know when to do this? And how physically it achieved? I have wondered for a long time!

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

Firstly the wound occlusions (not inclusion!) do not fuse they roll in and make contact, the new layers do fuse and continue to grow normaly, dissect an old pruning wound for example.

 

next the include regions of forks, the incluion is again permanent but as the tree grows the xylem at both edges gradualy becomes a thicker layer till the include region is swallowed and only a small fraction of the cross sectional area it was once. fork stress on weak unions encourages the thickening of the side walls.

 

I dont think the tree knows persay, its just simple mechanical stresses in the inclusions and path of least resistance in the flow of living tissues having to take a route around rather than through, a tree can only add to, it cant subtract like our bones do.

 

and when your done thinking about these growth paterns have a look at "inosculations!"

[sloth]

Sorry yes, occlude, damn predictive text on mobile! I'm still not clear in my mind how the tree 'decides' the contacting bark stops and joins xylem instead? Maybe I'm looking into it too thoughtfully. And I shall go now in search of info on inosculation, thank you

[fagus]

My view on this is that the trees has too because of the pressure being exerted.With grafting we wrap tightly to exclude the air.Once the cambium link then it becomes natural.

[Albedo]

One year old thread but I'll chuck something in...

 

 

Trees work / grow by cell division....they lay down different types of cells according to various factors like mechanical forces... more woody or not etc. I was just reading about this in Matheck the other day.

 

This could be a clue but I don't know the answer:001_smile:

[Arctostaphylos uva-ursi]

My view on this is that the trees has too because of the pressure being exerted.With grafting we wrap tightly to exclude the air.Once the cambium link then it becomes natural.

 

You have hit the nail on the head. Basically it is grafting. Just as roots graft together when in contact, so do stems and branches.