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downbeatplumb · August 16, 2011 at 12:59 pm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14543120

**The Grand Nudger** · (This post was last modified: August 16, 2011 at 1:07 pm by The Grand Nudger.)

Good to see that they've found samples for this theory. Fascinating stuff really. As a plant grows taller it becomes more difficult to bring water to the top. You've got transpirational pull, and densities of salts, but that only gets you so far up. Having a firm core or outer stem to contract against makes moving water up a little easier. Without a mechanism to transport water to ever increasing heights, you would not need wood as support. I love how elegant this response was. Plants able to form a denser stem or core would have been able to grow taller, and then plants that could arrange this tissue into a more sturdy support would grow yet taller. It's a biological arms race. They're trying to kill each other.

**Autumnlicious** · August 16, 2011 at 2:14 pm

(August 16, 2011 at 1:04 pm)Rhythm Wrote: They're trying to kill each other.

How is it surprising that plants obey the same competitive rules as animals? Big Grin

They only move slower (for the most part).

**thesummerqueen** · August 16, 2011 at 2:15 pm

We told you, it's all about sex and death.

**Minimalist** · August 16, 2011 at 2:19 pm

Some creationist fucktard will show up momentarily to explain how their sky-daddy made trees exactly as they are 6,000 years ago.

Should be good for some laughs.

**The Grand Nudger** · (This post was last modified: August 16, 2011 at 2:21 pm by The Grand Nudger.)

Yeah trees wage quiet wars for centuries sometimes. They even try to grow into each others roots and drain their competitors of water. Smother him from above, drink him dry from below. It only ends when one or the other is dead. Comforting to know that this sort of malevolence can occur without consciousness, isn't it..lol.

**thesummerqueen** · August 16, 2011 at 2:41 pm

"As they listened, they began to understand the lives of the Forest, apart from themselves, indeed to feel themselves as the strangers where all other things were at home. [...] Tom's words laid bare the hearts of trees and their thoughts, which were dark and strange, and filled with a hatred of things that go free upon the earth, gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning: destroyers and usurpers. It was not called the Old Forest without reason, for it was indeed ancient, a survivor of vast forgotten woods; and in there lived yet, ageing no quicker than the hills, the fathers of the fathers of trees, remembering times when they were lords. The countless years had filled them with pride and rooted wisdom, and with malice." --- The Fellowship of the Ring

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