#Canopy Growth

[delicatelysublimeforester]

Meet David Kirton during Arbor Week

[landwriter]

a ponderosa pine through binoculars

[alyss-erulisse]

Ancestral Pecans

Two aged pecan trees shade the farmyard and stand sentry over the gate to the fields beyond.

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[natashagraceart]

Nemophilist II. Photography: © Natasha Grace. All Rights Reserved.

[halledammen1961blog]

[disgruntled-lifeform]

Loving the little water drips coming off the berries

[macabrecabra]

RIP big maple tree in my backyard, we tried for five years, but the previous owner of me maison slated you for death by not freeing you in times from the insects and gouging huge wounds into you...

Been trying for a while to nurse it back to health, but this year the only growth is on one branch (that is already dying) and some sprouts....

So the tree has to come down :c I've kept seeds it dropped, so maybe will try to grow its offspring to replace it.

[thebbtalks]

One more for the evening. Right now is all about momentum, progress, and growth. There are so many exciting things coming up in the near future, I can't wait to share them soon ❤️. So far this is a year of a new beginning, a new home, a new car, tons of new friends, healthy headway in processing old&lingering feelings, swift progress towards goals, and loads of travel. I'm working on some new art, and have plans to finally have some new photography to share. I'm still processing thru photos from last year, but I'm quickly approaching the present. #progress #trees #intentions #growth #sky #canopy #hiking #hikingadventures #beginning #past #photography #theprocess #latergram #selflove #growth #growthmindset #phoenix #changes https://www.instagram.com/p/CpRemSrLJr4/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[reasonsforhope]

Ancient redwoods recover from fire by sprouting 1000-year-old buds

Article | Paywall free

When lightning ignited fires around California’s Big Basin Redwoods State Park north of Santa Cruz in August 2020, the blaze spread quickly. Redwoods naturally resist burning, but this time flames shot through the canopies of 100-meter-tall trees, incinerating the needles. “It was shocking,” says Drew Peltier, a tree ecophysiologist at Northern Arizona University. “It really seemed like most of the trees were going to die.”

Yet many of them lived. In a paper published yesterday in Nature Plants, Peltier and his colleagues help explain why: The charred survivors, despite being defoliated [aka losing all their needles], mobilized long-held energy reserves—sugars that had been made from sunlight decades earlier—and poured them into buds that had been lying dormant under the bark for centuries.

“This is one of those papers that challenges our previous knowledge on tree growth,” says Adrian Rocha, an ecosystem ecologist at the University of Notre Dame. “It is amazing to learn that carbon taken up decades ago can be used to sustain its growth into the future.” The findings suggest redwoods have the tools to cope with catastrophic fires driven by climate change, Rocha says. Still, it’s unclear whether the trees could withstand the regular infernos that might occur under a warmer climate regime.

Mild fires strike coastal redwood forests about every decade. The giant trees resist burning thanks to the bark, up to about 30 centimeters thick at the base, which contains tannic acids that retard flames. Their branches and needles are normally beyond the reach of flames that consume vegetation on the ground. But the fire in 2020 was so intense that even the uppermost branches of many trees burned and their ability to photosynthesize went up in smoke along with their pine needles.

Trees photosynthesize to create sugars and other carbohydrates, which provide the energy they need to grow and repair tissue. Trees do store some of this energy, which they can call on during a drought or after a fire. Still, scientists weren’t sure these reserves would prove enough for the burned trees of Big Basin.

Visiting the forest a few months after the fire, Peltier and his colleagues found fresh growth emerging from blackened trunks. They knew that shorter lived trees can store sugars for several years. Because redwoods can live for more than 2000 years, the researchers wondered whether the trees were drawing on much older energy reserves to grow the sprouts.

Average age is only part of the story. The mix of carbohydrates also contained some carbon that was much older. The way trees store their sugar is like refueling a car, Peltier says. Most of the gasoline was added recently, but the tank never runs completely dry and so a few molecules from the very first fill-up remain. Based on the age and mass of the trees and their normal rate of photosynthesis, Peltier calculated that the redwoods were calling on carbohydrates photosynthesized nearly 6 decades ago—several hundred kilograms’ worth—to help the sprouts grow. “They allow these trees to be really fire-resilient because they have this big pool of old reserves to draw on,” Peltier says.

It's not just the energy reserves that are old. The sprouts were emerging from buds that began forming centuries ago. Redwoods and other tree species create budlike tissue that remains under the bark. Scientists can trace the paths of these buds, like a worm burrowing outward. In samples taken from a large redwood that had fallen after the fire, Peltier and colleagues found that many of the buds, some of which had sprouted, extended back as much as 1000 years. “That was really surprising for me,” Peltier says. “As far as I know, these are the oldest ones that have been documented.”

... “The fact that the reserves used are so old indicates that they took a long time to build up,” says Susan Trumbore, a radiocarbon expert at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. “Redwoods are majestic organisms. One cannot help rooting for those resprouts to keep them alive in decades to come.”

-via Science, December 1, 2023

[theveryworstthing]

an old growth dryad named Canopy. some say she was one of the first seedlings in her forest home.

weird that no one has ever seen her tree.

[alyss-erulisse]

Centenarian Pecan Trees

A canopy of giant pecan trees shade the farmyard inside an eclectic perimeter of rotted posts, rusted chain-links and varied shrubbery.

See more of my work: Check out my archive.

Join me on my journey: Follow me on tumblr.

Support my creative life: Buy me a coffee on KoFi.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

When plants are grown under high R:FR, as in an open canopy, phy proteins become nuclear localized and inactivate PIF proteins, which act as negative regulators of the phytochrome photomorphogenic response (Figure 18.30).

"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.

[tenth-sentence]

In this way it can enhance its chances of growing above the canopy and acquiring a greater share of unfiltered, photosynthetically active light.

"Plant Physiology and Development" int'l 6e - Taiz, L., Zeiger, E., Møller, I.M., Murphy, A.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Secrets of the Bly

The canopy sailed over the horizon line.

The mother looked out the window, snapping the sheets as she folded them. Her clear gray eyes were the same color as the morning sky and just as gloomy.

“Closer,” she muttered. She seemed surprised she had spoken, and her hands slowed, fingers lingering on the fraying edge of her own bed sheet. She wet her lips. Said again, “Closer.”

“What’s closer?” the daughter asked.

The mother didn’t jump, but the air changed as if she did. Her shoulders stiffened. Her hands went back to work. “Nothing,” she said. Then, not being able to help herself, “The forest is growing quickly.”

“Teacher says that trees don’t grow fast. Only an inch or two a year.”

“You couldn’t see the Bly when you were a baby,” the mother said. Her heart stung. She knew her daughter wasn’t calling her foolish. Lately, when the little girl spoke of her teacher, something she never had, it makes something sour in her want to lash out. “Now look how tall it stands!”

The daughter came to the window. Her clothes were ill-fitting. She looked as if she tumbled in and then out of fresh laundry only to come up wearing a whole bedspread. The dress she wore used to be the mother’s from when she was young. Her eyes traced the horizon. “That’s faster than teacher said.”

“Not even a teacher knows everything,” the mother said. Her own mother’s voice rang through hers. That made her jump. She thrust the laundry away from her and finally looked at her daughter. “Some truths are only learned while living—”

The daughter stared at her bare feet. Shoulders rounded. Lip jutting out so far the mother could see it through her hanging, flaxen hair. The mother’s heart stung different.

“The Bly is…different,” the mother said. It’s her own voice this time. Softer and more yielding. She kneeled so that the daughter could see her right away when she chose to look up. “It’s a secret I’d like you to keep.”

The daughter’s eyes darted up, meeting the mother’s. Her lip contracted a centimeter. “A secret?”

“Just between us two,” the mother agreed. Was the little girl old enough? She would give anything to bring her daughter’s chin up again. “Your teacher is right that trees grow slow. The Bly is different here. Only here.”

“Only here?”

“On our land. You see, the Bly is home to another kind of creature. Like us, but not. They are mischievous and kind and cruel. More importantly, they’re magic.”

“Fairies,” the daughter said confidently.

“The Good Folk,” the mother said in her own mother’s voice. Then to soften it, “And that’s not the secret.”

The daughter reached out to put her hands on her mother’s shoulders. She jumped in excitement, using her mother to steady herself. “Tell me! Please, tell me.”

The mother smiled and placed her hands over her daughters. She tilted her head forward and was rewarded when her daughter stopped leaping about and pressed her own forehead against hers. She whispered, “The secret is that once, a long time ago, I stole something from them. That’s why the forest grows so quickly over the horizon. They’re looking for what I took.”

“What?!” The daughter was amazed. “You said never to steal.”

“I did. I needed it very badly, mustn’t I have?”

“Yes,” the daughter said. Her quick mind tumbled through her mother’s confession. “So you’ve been in the Bly? What was it like? Teacher says there are wolves in there. What did you steal?”

For a moment, the mother was not there. She raced through dense old growth with her feet cut to ribbons and her skirts sticking wetly to her legs. Her breath came in cold clouds in front of her and she ran through them just as quickly as they formed. She could use only one hand to shield her face from vines and branches. Her other arm was curled around the bundle in her arms.

“One day,” the mother said. She stood but wrapped her hands around her daughter’s so that she knew it was only a necessary retreat and not a complete one. “One day, when you’re older, I’ll tell you all the stories I have.”

The girl’s lower lip was out again. “How old?”

“When the Bly hits the edge of our land,” the mother said. She held out her pinky. “Promise.”

The girl was suspicious. “It grows fast?”

The mother’s heart stung differently again. “Very fast.”

“Deal!”

---

(Patreon)

[syoddeye]

xylaria polymorpha

You pick him. He picks you back. cw: entomophobia, earachnophobia, vomit mention (not depicted), mild body horror, abduction, buried alive (sort of), nonconsensual kiss a/n: AO3

The woods, no matter where you roam, have always felt like a refuge. An escape from your day job and your cramped flat. Far from emails and bills.

The air is cool, laced with the scent of wildflowers and damp earth. As you walk, you name the flora around you, half-whispering, half-thinking. Dog's mercury. Lesser celandine. Bursts of foxglove.

The woods are loud in a quiet way. Alive. Wood pigeons cooing, squirrels chittering, a fox slipping through the brush in a blur. You take it all in, breathe it in deeply.

This peace is why you come here. Or part of it, anyway.

Your foraging bag swings at your side, weighted with what you've already found. Oyster mushrooms, chicken of the woods, a single giant puffball. Two dryad's saddles stacked atop one another. Your parents taught you how to hunt and how to identify your finds. You were barely knee-high the first time they took you, holding your hand as you nervously poked at leaves and logs. It's a valuable skill, one you're grateful to have honed. The shelves in your kitchen are full because of it, and on weekends, you sell the excess at the market.

The trees grow taller as you walk, their trunks thick and gnarled. It's darker and colder here, the light barely piercing the canopy. You don't mind, and merely zip your jacket to your chin. The good stuff's always further in.

A few hedgehogs and puffballs later, you see them.

They rise from around the body of a rotting log, black and knotted, their shape unmistakable. You kneel, your heart fluttering with the discovery. You've read about them in books, seen photos online: xylaria polymorpha. Dead man's fingers.

They're inedible, nor are they particularly pleasant to look at, but you reach for your notebook anyway. A sketch and then a picture on your phone. Something to send the parents. But your gaze catches on something else.

In the rear of the cluster, there are five paler growths, different from the others. They stand out, almost glowing against the dark soil. You've never seen anything like them. A mutation, perhaps. Or some kind of bacteria or mold. You edge closer, leaning in, fascinated, and without thinking, you reach out to touch one.

The moment your fingers brush the surface, it moves. And it doesn't just twitch or shift—it grabs.

A cold, wet pressure wraps around your hand. It knocks a violent gasp from your throat, and immediately, you try to pull back, but the grip tightens. Your bag falls, spilling as you twist and yank. The mushrooms clinging to your hands aren't mushrooms anymore. They're fingers—long, sinewy fingers. Pale and filthy, their nails cracked and dark with soil.

You freeze, a scream catching in your chest as the fingers pull harder, dragging your hand downward. Then you see it. The arm . Rising from the earth, covered in moss and mud, thick and muscular. Panic surges up from your belly, burning your throat with its acid. Stomach churning your breakfast as the rest of it emerges. Piece by piece as though being assembled by the woods themselves.

A man. 

And from your knees, he looks enormous.

The body is tall, broad-shouldered, with skin that appears almost translucent in places under the layers of muck and decay. The chest is scarred, torn up, and sewn back together with thin vines and stems. Pocked with keloids and other protrusions that look less natural. Dozens of insects crawl over his skin, falling to the ground or disappearing into the folds of moss that cling to bits of him. One of his ears is a swollen, misshapen thing, his hair shoddily cropped, bits of it stringy and wet, but his eyes lock onto yours—dark, intense, and unblinking.

You can't move. His hand wraps around yours like a root. He towers over you, filling your view, banishing whatever notion of peace you had.

"A woman." He rasps through cracked lips, hoarse. "Were you gonna pick me?"

You try to speak, to say anything, but the words won't come. You're not even sure this is actually happening.

He tilts his head, studying. He squeezes a little, hinting at how he could crush your hand without a thought. Crack you open like a walnut.

The image snaps you back to yourself, your mind clearing with a rush of instinct. You pull, but before you can make any progress, he yanks you forward, then up, like it's nothing. He holds your hand high above your head, and you watch, transfixed, as a spider squeezes itself through the mess of his ear.

You finally find your voice, though you swallow some sick to free it. "What…What are you?"

He doesn't answer right away. His gaze drifts down, then back up again, slow, deliberate. He looks at the overturned bag, his brow twitching just slightly, then returns to your eyes. His free hand lifts, and as it moves, a sludgy drip of mud falls, plopping softly onto the ground. You flinch as he drags two fingers over the curve of your cheek, smearing the mud over your skin.

"These woods belong to me. Everything you've stolen? Mine." His fingers graze you again, feeling the hammering pulse at your neck. "You followin'?"

"I didn't mean to—"

"But you did." His mouth curves slightly. "You touched me. You chose. You thought you were gonna carry me off."

The once-familiar sounds of the forest warp. The birdsong sounds wrong. Off-key and more frantic. The forest closes in. Shadows stretch longer in the periphery.

His hold is what keeps you from collapsing in shock when the ground starts to give way. Slowly, beneath your boots, the earth begins to eat you. Your toes, your ankles, your calves. You pull at his arm, desperate to break his grip, to push yourself free, but he's unmoving, rooted. Then you realize he's sinking with you.

His other hand touches your chin, rough fingers tilting your face toward him. You flinch as his thumb brushes your lower lip, leaving behind the tang of damp soil. The taste makes you gag, and you twist harder, but his hold is unrelenting.

"This is 'ow it works," There is no malice. He speaks as though this is fact. "You don't take without givin' back. Not 'ere, not from me."

The ground rises faster, the earth climbing your thighs. Your breath catches, panic surging. You try to wrest free, but no amount of struggling helps. You're sinking, and he's sinking with you.

"You picked me. This. Made your choice." He repeats, softer this time. 

It's up to your chest. Dozens of tiny legs move beneath the surface, exploring your skin, inspecting you. Welcoming you. Tears blur your vision and slip down your face.

He lets go of your arm now that you're trapped, immobile, and holds either side of your face. He tips your head back up, and just as the world swallows you whole, he plants his mouth over yours.

A week later, the authorities will find your foraging bag beside the log. Its treasures withered to black. They'll call your name and search until dusk, but they won't find you.

You'll be far below them by then, cradled in roots and arms as thick as tree branches, breathing in the forest in a different way. Far beyond their reach, but alive. Thriving. Growing.