Pictures of the Week: Arbor Day 2012

Acacia tree, Kenya, Africa. Keith Levit / Design Pics/Newscom. Find it at Newscom.com: depdest004294.

Trees are awesome, there’s no denying it. Climbing to the top of a giant tree and hanging out in its branches for a while can be one of the most relaxing things ever. I’d give anything to be one of those crazy rainforest canopy researchers who spend their days up in the branches with the sloths and tree snakes. But that’s just me.

Unfortunately many of the world’s forests are threatened with logging. Hence why Arbor Day is amazing. Did you know that the first Arbor Day was clear back in 1872? It started in Nebraska and over one million trees were planted. Since then the holiday’s popularity has exploded across the globe. It is now celebrated in something like thirty-six other countries besides the U.S.

And it makes sense. Who wouldn’t want to celebrate the coolness of trees? Trees are so cool that:

The worlds largest organism isn’t the elephant. Its a network of aspen trees found in central Utah. These trees are all interconnected by the roots and cover about 106 acres. Not only that, but together they weigh around 6,000 tons!
An acre of trees can convert the carbon dioxide given off by a car driven 8,700 miles into fresh oxygen.
Planting trees in strategic spots in the yard can cut energy bills by as much as 60%.
The cottonwood tree seed is surrounded by super light, fluffy hairs that can keep the seed aloft on air currents for several days.
One of the tallest soft wood trees is the General Sherman, a giant redwood sequoia of California. General Sherman is about 275 ft or 84 m high with a girth of 25 ft or 8 m.
The world’s oldest trees are 4,600 year old Bristlecone pines in the USA. That means they were already 2000 years into their life when Jesus Christ walked the Earth. That’s pretty old!
You’ve probably heard that you can tell a tree’s age by counting its rings. But did you know that this doesn’t work in the tropics? There is no way to measure the age of tropical forests. This is because the weather is the same all year round, so it doesn’t make distinct tree rings.
In Athens, Georgia, you will find the only tree that owns land. The White Oak inherited the land in a will and owns a total of 64 square feet of property.
Sugar Maples can produce three gallons of sap every day. But before you plant one to make syrup for your pancakes, keep in mind that in order to make one gallon of delicious maple syrup you will need more than forty gallons of sap.
The deepest roots recorded in the world are from a Wild Fig Tree in South Africa. The roots reached 400 feet into the ground.

If these facts didn’t convince you about trees, maybe these next few pictures will.

Scenics In Autumn,Hangzhou,China. View Stock Stock Connection USA/Newscom. Find it at Newscom.com: scusphotos074783.

Ingram Publishing/Newscom. Find it at Newscom.com: ipurestockx073557.

Winter tree, linden tree with aura. Stefan Huwiler Image Broker/Newscom. Find it at Newscom.com: ibphotos141227.

Sunlight cascades in winter forest with hoar frost. Kurt Möbus Image Broker/Newscom. Find it at Newscom.com: ibphotos111931.

Tree silhouette in blue fog. Sean White / Design Pics/Newscom. Find it at Newscom.com: depphotos053375.

Rays of the rising sun break through the fog and tree tops in a coniferous forest near Genachhausen, Germany, 13 September 2007. A3542 Karl-Josef Hildenbrand Deutsche Presse-Agentur/Newscom. Find it at Newscom.com: dpaphotos088694.

The rising sun silhouettes the slash pine trees in the foreground, looking east into the Big Cypress National Preserve; part of the National Park system in southwest Florida. Larry Richardson / DanitaDelimont.com “Danita Delimont Photography”/Newscom. Find it at Newscom.com: ddpphotos258556.