Tree Biology

A major photosynthetic sugar factory is the tree. Photosynthesis and trees are synonymous and a leaf is the engine. Photosynthesis provides us with both food and oxygen and is the ultimate necessary process insuring our survival on this planet.

Tree tissues are made up mostly of three basic groups: dermal tissue (bark), ground tissue (roots) and vascular tissue (under bark). To understand a tree, you must understand its tissue.

Botanical parts of a leaf. Use these leaf parts and markers to make a positive tree identification.

Only 1% of a tree is actually alive, composed of living cells. The only living portion of a tree is a thin film of cells just under the bark called the cambium, root tips, buds and leaves.

Trees use massive amounts of water through the process of transpiration for the benifit of themselves and the Earth.

Leaf structure and arrangement is unique to every tree species. Understanding a tree leaf's shape, arrangement, margin and venation is important to tree taxonomists.

A tree is the sum of its unique biological parts. I provide a diagram of a hardwood tree and offer some biology explaining how its parts work to make a tree possible.

Trees make oxygen in amounts that contribute to its availability to humans. There are questions as to how much oxygen is available to humans that is tree produced

Leaves are food factories of the tree. Powered by sunlight, the green substance in leaves called chlorophyll uses carbon dioxide and water to produce carbohydrates.

Besides its branches, roots, and leaves, a mature tree grows another important structure - the flower (or cone, in the case of evergreens).

Believe it or not, twigs can be used to identify a tree. Good thing because they are about all you have during the dormant months of winter.

Bark is a tree's natural armor and protects from external threats. Bark also has several physical functions, one is ridding the tree of wastes by absorbing and locking them into its dead cells and resins.

Tree live to become very old because they have a defense to the disease process called compartmentalization.

cambium is a necessary term to know when studying tree growth.

Tree species get their scientific name from the Linnaean classification of plant categories. Learn more about how a tree is named.