h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Having studied the fossilized root system of an oak exposed by a road cut, I can attest that there's easily as much root structure as there is super-structure with an oak and oak is notably a tough and hard to shatter wood.

Tough and hard to shatter, certainly. But there's a second quality that also helps: the wood is able to give. Oak wood was prized y shipbuilders because it could bend without breaking in response to ocean waves. It could also, it its late stages, be used for growing mushrooms .

That has to do with the structure of the wood.

Rather than discrete boundaries for successive tree rings the successive rings of oak are stitched together with lignin threads.

How cool, such a clever tree.

Do you think it got so clever from log-ging on to the net?

The first oak was a mutation of a beech tree, apparently.

Oaks don't need the Net. Their roots intertwine to the point where some roots merge, belonging to two or more trees. They often communicate through their roots.

I've seen that with branches of adjacent trees naturally fusing together.

Some types of trees in a forest survive windstorms because their crowns react to wind in a non-synchronized way. They stabilize each other.

In the past 36 hours the Met Office has changed the weather forecast for East England and London several times from heavy rain to light rain. Their percentage of forecasted precipitation has gone down from 80% down to 20% and the time scale the rain was expected has dramatically shrank from 7 hours of light to heavy precipitation down to 2 hours. It will probably change again by late morning to early afternoon.

I have two trees in my garden, one which I identified recently is either a hawthorn or buckthorn tree and the other one has similar leaves and bark to a rowan but has never bore blossom or berries. I have a cousin (who is a horticulturist) who a sent a photo of my trees but she could not identify the second tree.

Rowans and Locusts have similar leaves. Locusts tend to have thorns, but their big giveaway is the white blossoms in late May/early June, not to mention the long pea-like pods.

Or, the mystery tree might be a mimosa.

http://www.eattheweeds.com/albizia-julibrissin-tripinnated-lunch-2/

Paul here is the photo of my unknown deciduous tree.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/138591409@N08/42266535290/in/dateposted-public/

We call that the "tree of heaven" in California, ailanthus altissima.

There's a good Wikipedia article.

The tree is native to China, produces a somewhat musky odor from the leaves on a hot summer day, makes starchy tubers on its roots.

If it loses the tip leaflet on one of the deciduous fronds, the frond keeps growing.

Its easily propagated from offshoots or tubers or seed.

The seed clusters are large, comprised of thin, papery seed pods and vary from pale green to yellow to orange to red in color.

The flowers are white and inconspicuous.

It makes a useful windbrake or shade tree.

The brittle wood is used mainly for firewood.

It's considered invasive in Massacfhusetts. The leaves are very similar to those of sumac, though I've seriously tried to tell the difference and was not able to be sure.

I personally like the tree, though I've had a copiously seeding example that engulphed a galvanized steel chain link fence line become the second most numerous contributor to the weeds in my garden, after the pigweed and before the salvia vulgaris.

Metallic zinc potently stimulates its growth, for example a galvanized (zinc coated) nail driven into its trunk.

Though it can become an invasive weed, its easily controlled by spading or hoeing or simple hand weeding.

Um, it makes it hard for other plants to grow in its vicinity.

I've grown a good crop of chili peppers in a 4' x 4' square bounded by 4 6" diameter trees of heaven.

Its mainly the odor that puts people off at first though they quickly adapt and stop noticing.

It lacks the potential for skin irritation many sumacs have.

I'd personally be inclined to place it with the locusts despite the lack of a bean-like pod.

As a firewood tree, I've seen them come up 20' x 4" in a single season from well established rootstocks.

Grown this way can make annual crop cut back after autumn leaf fall.

Leaves make an excellent self-composting mulch.

They make good, easily ignited fast and hot burning kindling.

Another way of controlling them is to pen hogs or dogs where they grow.

I've used them to build a hedge of shade trees that matured with 30' to 40' heights in 3 to 4 years.

They have a reputation as among the world's fastest-growing trees.

Afterthoughts on its odor, a rather musky odor especially on a hot summer day, somewhat reminds me of Vietnamese temple musk incense.

It another way, reminds me of the odor of zinnias and chrysanthemums, which can be used to camouflage it, grown under the tree of heaven.