Me As A Tree

I started out as a small humble seed, carrying within me all that I needed to know. Buried in the earth my first signs of life were sprouts going down into the earth to became my roots. Roots that spread through the earth providing support and nourishment for my growth while holding the soil from being eroded away. Roots that are wider by far than the furtherest reach of my branches, resisting the forces of wind and water, keeping me upright. Roots that reach out to communicate with other tree roots, a whole network of busy activity below the surface.

As my roots provide my base my innate knowledge causes me to seek out air and light and I push out a sliver of wood upwards, driving out into the sunlight. This becomes my trunk and once established it continues to expand upwards and gets thicker as it climbs. The vascular tissue that makes up my trunk is like a set of pipes which feed my branches and leaves with water and nutrients collected by the roots and in return the food made in the leaves is transported back to nourish my roots. This tissue is what we know as wood which the trunk mainly provides. As my trunk expands the dying cells are pushed to the outside and is seen as my bark.

As my trunk grows to a size to support them, branches start to appear from my trunk and the first leaves are formed. Now my smarts really come into play because I have a process called photosynthesis that miraculously uses the energy of the sun to convert the air and water that the leaves receive into sugars that I absorb as nourishment and exudes oxygen that the humans need to breathe. A large tree can supply enough oxygen each and every day to support a family of four. I also remove carbon dioxide from the air to store in the fibres of my trunk for later nourishment.

Me as a tree? Proud to be a tree. Proud to be one of the greatest contributors to life on this planet.

Me as a tree?
Without me,
Brainy me,
Where would you be?