Tree Bark
While we still have wintry days before the spring opens everything up into leaf, try studying tree bark. Such an under-rated part of the living life of a tree, bark provides all the transport needs of the tree in its growing epidermis and then amazingly dies away, to help protect the enormous vigour a tree must exert to withstand all the elements in their extremities. Bark not only protects the tree, it also provides shelter for all manner of insects most of which are not seen by us because they are literally hiding ‘under the bark’. Every tree species has their own identifying bark, some are so different we wonder at how that could possibly have evolved and for what purposes?