50 Refreshing Facts About Trees

There is a species of palm tree (Windmill Palm) that can survive as far north as Canada.

27. The Giant Redwood Tree is so tall that in order to get water near the top of the tree, it uses "air roots" to collect water out of the fog.

28. Older bigger trees share nutrients with smaller trees, which later repay them back when they have developed.

29. When trees started evolving and growing throughout the world, wood was not biodegradable until a fungus figured out how to rot them 40 million years later.

30. Aluminum Christmas trees dropped in popularity after their negative portrayal in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

Trees actually sleep at night, relaxing their branches after dawn and perking them up before sunrise.

32. The Rainbow Eucalyptus trees in Hawaii have natural rainbow-colored bark.

33. The wood of tabebuia trees is more dense than water and naturally shares the same fire resistance rating as industrial steel.

34. To stop the theft of trees in public parks near Christmas time, some cities spray would-be Christmas trees with fox urine. It freezes and is odorless outdoors, but would be unbearable and irremovable if taken into someone's home.

35. Trees can tell if deer are trying to eat them. Due to their ability to detect deer saliva, trees defend themselves by producing excess acids that cause their buds to taste bitter so that the deer will lose interest and leave them alone.

The Baobab tree is hollow and provides a life for animals and humans in parched lands.

37. Pine trees scatter their needles across the forest floor to make it easier for fires to burn all of the other trees. Pine is fire resistant so it survives.

38. Paulownia is also known as the "princess tree" because it was once customary to plant a Paulownia tree when a baby girl was born, and then to make it into a dresser as a wedding present when she married.

39. After the holidays, the Rockefeller Christmas Tree is milled into lumber and donated to Habitat For Humanity to be used for building homes.

40. Severing the limb of a Bloodwood tree triggers the same type of response you'd see if you severed a human limb. The damage causes the release of a deep crimson sap that looks alarmingly like human blood. Its sole purpose is to coagulate and seal wounds, but has many other medical uses as well.

There was a solitary tree in the Sahara Desert, keeping itself alive by a 110-feet deep root system, until a drunk driver managed to ram his truck into it.

42. Moringa tree leaves contain all of the essential amino acids, more iron than spinach, more calcium than milk, more Vitamin A than carrots, and their seeds have been shown to purify water.

43. The original Bramley apple tree planted in 1809, from which all Bramley apple trees are cloned, is still alive, but dying from a fungal infection.

44. One olive tree can produce around four liters of oil every year for hundreds of years.

45. The Sandbox Tree, also known as the Dynamite Tree, is covered in spikes, full of poison, and grows exploding fruits.

Columbia University has developed an artificial tree that passively soaks up carbon dioxide from the air using “leaves” that are 1,000 times more efficient than true leaves that use photosynthesis.

47. There is a tree called the Tree of Life in Bahrain which is approximately 400 years old, living in the desert with no other vegetation in the surrounding area.

48. There exist a mysterious fruit-bearing species of tree named Stern's medlar in Arkansas that was discovered by science in 1990. It is only the second of its kind, with its closest relative being in Europe. It exists only in a 22-acre area. There are only 25 trees left of its kind and no one knows where it came from.

49. The peanut butter tree is a tropical tree that smells like peanut butter and produces fruit that tastes like it as well.

50. The ant tree is also known as a “novice tree” because only someone unfamiliar with the tree would dare touch it and will soon discover that the ants that live inside it are aggressive and venomous.