Root

I am intrigued by rainforest tree roots. So tall the trees, so heavy, so busy 'way up top in the sunlight, and it's all held in place by a few metres of roots grabbing the bit of soil coating the rocks that make up our mountains.

And sometimes they fail.

When young, Douglas-fir establishes a taproot in the soil. The taproot continues to penetrate into the soil for the next ten years. As the tree ages, it produces a slew of lateral roots. The main lateral roots breach the soil at a sharp angle. The depth of the root system is related to the soil structure and texture. In areas that receive abundant rainfall, the roots may burrow 60 to 100 cm into the earth, with some progressing even deeper. On well-drained soils, the lateral roots may reach up to 1 meter beyond the crown. (IronTreeService)

Another site says that the roots may extend themselves up to 3 metres vertically and laterally. That's not a lot of root for a tree that reaches up to 60 metres high.

I am perpetually amazed at this world we live in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Las raices de nuestros árboles del bosque pluvial me fascinan. Tan altos los árboles, tan pesados, tan activos allá arriba donde calienta el sol, y ¡todo se mantiene en su lugar con unos cuantos metros de raiz agarrándose a la escasa cobija de tierra que cubre las rocas.

Foto: y a veces no es suficiente.

"Cuando brota, el abeto de Douglas establece una raiz primaria en la tierra. Esta sigue penetrando dentro del suelo por los próximos diez años. Mientras crece el árbol, produce una cantidad de raices laterales. Las raices laterales principales cortan el suelo en un ángulo agudo. Lo hondo del sistema de raices depende de la estructura y la textura del suelo. En sitios que reciben lluvia abundante, las raices pueden enterrarse de 60 a 100 cm. dentro del suelo, con algunas que se extienden aún más hondo. En suelos con buen drenaje, las raices laterales pueden alcanzar hasta 1 metro más que la corona." (De IronTreeService)

Otro sitio web dice que estas raices pueden extenderse hasta 3 metros tanto vertical como lateralmente. No es mucha raiz para un árbol que se alza hasta 60 metros al aire.

Siempre me quedo asombrada ante este mundo en que vivimos.

Twisty

I'm always intrigued by those snags and logs that are twisted in a spiral, like hand-washed clothes wrung out and ready to hang. What giant hands wrung these out, I wonder.

An uprooted stump, long dead, on Baikie Island exposes spiral-grained roots. And comes with an extra: a lizard and a snake howling at the sky.

Looks like the central cores of the roots grew straight, but the outer layers are wrapped around them on an angle. Why?

Dune walk

Along the dunes at Oyster Bay. Mostly sandy, with logs piled higgledy-piggledy from the high tide line to the forest; grassy, prickly with the seed heads of big-headed carex, dusted with lichens, anchored with tall grasses and assorted salt-tolerant shrubbery; home to garter snakes, grasshoppers, butterflies, and little twittering birds.

Photos in no particular order.

Typical mix. I'm not sure what the shrub is. There are orange fungi on the end of the farthest log out on the left and on the front log on the far right.

Silver burweed, Ambrosia chamissonis, just starting out. By mid-summer they will cover most of the bay end of the dunes.

Trails in the sand.

These trails were everywhere on the bay end of the dunes, well above the high tide line, in dry sand. There were no snail trails below the high tide line; these aren't made by sea snails, nor crabs, nor hermits. They're too irregular to be garter snake trails. If they're made by land snails, it's odd; the trails end abruptly, as if the snail picked up her skirts and tiptoed away. I've seen no live snails in this end of the dunes.

Any ideas?

One of the many grasses. A brome, I think.

Baked tree root.

Beware of the trees!

Before all the new leaves cover them, I stopped to look at bare logs and tree roots along the Myrt Thompson trail and found them a bit worrisome.

Tangled roots at the river's edge. The water frequently covers this spot, washing out the silt, leaving the roots a couple of feet above ground.

Shades of Old Man Willow! This tree has captured an unfortunate hiker.

Another capture. "Oh, woe, woe, woe! I've been swallowed by this log and I can't get out!"

Snag. Looks vicious. May bite.

The body in the woods

A startling discovery by the banks of the Campbell River ...

Body in a tree bark suit, abandoned among the dead leaves of last fall.

Maybe it's an alien from outer space; it has no hands, and there's something growing out of its upper chest area.

Or maybe I should step back and look at the whole complex.

Oh.

The bark on the roots looks like birch bark, but the trunk bark and the growth pattern says "willow".