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Compressive & tension reaction wood


David Humphries
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Nothing new here, just going through the motions to help me continue to understand how wood grows.

Feel free to add your own comments/observations/images.

 

A basic premiss derived from various texts.......

 

Compressive wood = formation of reactive wood to gravity/wind force (made up on the underside of gymnosperm branches & trunks by the laying down of additional lignin in the woody cells to help push the weight against the implied force..

 

Tension wood = formation of reactive wood to gravity/wind force (made up on the upper side of angiosperm branches & trunks by the laying down of additional cellulose in the woody cells to help pull up the weight against the implied force.

 

 

 

 

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Staverton23.jpg.845fd7985ce326c5b19081ebbcca2a54.jpg

IMG_4952.jpg.179576291cc8d35aef08cf639579cc01.jpg

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Hi David,

 

Similar to your Oak shot above, I think, I have seen pronounced growth striations on the underside of heavily loaded branches on broadleaves indicating reactive growth (?) which I didn't understand.

 

Regarding the general premises of 'push' n 'pull', conifers n broadleaves respectively, in terms of remembering it someone, poss. on the forum, said broadleaves have biceps, i.e. tension pull like a bicep (not mine tho :biggrin:), n conifers have triceps, i.e. compression pull like a tricep (not mine either :lol:)

 

Anyway enough waffle from me, clearly I need to go back to 'arb' school.

 

Thanks as ever for your informative posts, racks up my CPD every time :thumbup1:

 

Cheers..

Paul

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Hi David,

 

Similar to your Oak shot above, I think, I have seen pronounced growth striations on the underside of heavily loaded branches on broadleaves indicating reactive growth (?) which I didn't understand.

 

Regarding the general premises of 'push' n 'pull', conifers n broadleaves respectively, in terms of remembering it someone, poss. on the forum, said broadleaves have biceps, i.e. tension pull like a bicep (not mine tho :biggrin:), n conifers have triceps, i.e. compression pull like a tricep (not mine either :lol:)

 

Anyway enough waffle from me, clearly I need to go back to 'arb' school.

 

Thanks as ever for your informative posts, racks up my CPD every time :thumbup1:

 

 

Cheers..

Paul

 

This is a good way to remember it!! :thumbup1: I find these little phrases helpful.

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Any shots?

 

 

 

 

.

 

afraid not but they are very similar to the branches in your shots ripple wise.

 

from memory they are 24"dbh+ and very straight and tall. no lean that I can remember hence why I wondered if its just the wind that can do that.

 

they are relative close forest grown. they look like a cylinder of ripple!!!

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Having said the above, trees don't always play strictly by the 'rules'.

 

I think we can draw a distinction between normal (homogenous?) wood that happens to be growing more rapidly to cope with applied forces and structurally specialised wood doing the same. It might seem like a semantic trick but just as a rock can function as a fairly serviceable hammer without being a 'hammer' - not all wood resisting compression is compression wood (and I imagine the same applies to tension wood).

 

I imagine that all trees will add wood where the cambium detects uneven forces - if they are adapted to produce specific types of wood, then they will use those. Trouble is, you need a microscope to see the difference.

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