City Trees is a premier publication focused on urban + community forestry. In each issue, you’ll learn how to best manage the trees in your community and more!
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/171276
Starting at the Bottom: What Root Buttresses Can Tell Us about Trees and Landscapes by Clive Mayhew, Chartered Arboriculturist, The Mayhew Consultancy, East Sussex, England, clive@cmarb.co.uk Look at trees and what do you see? Well one thing's for sure, we don't look at them in quite the same way since Claus Mattheck opened our collective eyes to the world of tree biomechanics and the notion that we can interpret much about trees by merely looking at them. Mattheck's theories have broadened our understanding of trees' abilities to optimally respond to stresses placed upon them and the adaptive growth patterns which result. We can interpret and use these growth patterns as predictive indicators of potential failure. Much of a trees "body language," as described by Mattheck and articulated through his method of Visual Tree Assessment (VTA), is understandably driven by the social and economic imperative of failure predic- tion. It looks towards trees on the brink of mechanical breakdown. It's a language that is large, loud, and articulates malfunction. But is failure prediction only part of the story? What else might the growth patterns of trees have to tell us—growth patterns which are not driven by a survival strategy, but those adaptations which result from topographical circumstances or management practice? I think trees have a great deal to tell us about their histories. It's a quieter and more subtle language than we are used to, but one with the potential of great reward for those who take the trouble to look. For my own part I started at the bottom—with root buttresses. I was taught that a "good" tree such as the one pictured on the next page at bottom, was straight, with buttress roots that symmetrically flared as they reached the ground. Any variation to this was understood to be abnormal and consequently a potential cause for concern. This tree stump is the only surviving indicator of the ancient woodland bank on which it once stood. Photo by Steve Cox 34 I have followed this principle in countless tree inspections over many years, but then slowly it began to dawn on me that buttress flares are in fact rarely symmetrical. I began to see that buttress flares were often asymmetrical because the tree has fashioned adaptive growth in response to the immediate ground conditions in which it has grown—a phenomenon that has the potential to tell us much about both the tree and its history. City Trees