Thematic route

"Discover the secrets of the forest"

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The growth of a tree

Listen to the information here!

In front of you, you have a piece of wood made of an old oak tree, where you can observe its age.

How can you do that?

By counting those darker stripes, called annual rings.

Let me tell you why these rings are so obvious!

Our country has a climate with 4 seasons, the growth period being well defined, and the trees grow from spring to autumn, and when the cold comes, they stop their growth.

Do you know what this process is called?

Vegetative rest.

If you look more closely, across an annual ring, you can see two areas: a lighter-colored area, which is called early wood, being the wood that settles in the spring, when there is abundant rainfall, and a darker area, called late wood, being that wood grown in the summer period, when it is warmer and rains less.

Thus, we can conclude that in spring, the trees have higher growths, compared to the summer period.

Did you know that...

  • There are species in which the annual rings are not so obvious, such as hornbeam and linden.

  • The resonant wood is that wood from which musical instruments are built and that’s why this wood must have exceptional qualities, close to the ideal, such as: as equal as possible growth every year, not to have knots, etc.

  • Our country has impressive reserves of resonant spruce in the Lăpuşna Forest in the Gurghiu Mountains, on the territory of Mures County.

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