# smart trees

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-trees/597947>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [September 28, 2011, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-trees/597947 "2011-09-28T23:47:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![crwaymire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85e7bf/32.png) [@crwaymire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crwaymire)\
**Post date:** [September 28, 2011, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-trees/597947/1 "2011-09-28T23:47:09Z")

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How do trees know which direction to grow to balance themselves so they don’t fall over?

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-trees/597947/2 "2011-09-29T00:02:35Z")

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They don’t - not always. Trees may fall over if they grow unevenly due to environmental factors such as insect attack or prevailing weather.

But most trees don’t fall over - this is probably for several reasons, including:  
**Physical makeup:** They’re made of strong stuff, rooted into the ground. Even if they are slightly overbalanced, trees can remain standing.  
**Evolution:** They generally grow in a symmetrical arrangment because that’s what their ancestors did, all the way back to the point where they weren’t trees. If at any point a mutation occurs to make something freakish and unbalanced, it will probably not be as successful in producing offspring as its peers - so it dies out.  
\*\*Plant anatomy and development: \*\* Plant growth is regulated by hormones - these are distributed around the plant in such a way that they tend to stimulate new growth adjacent to damaged tissues - so if you cut off a twig, it interrupts the flow of hormones in such a way as to stimulate a nearby bud to sprout and grow a new twig that more or less replaces the one you cut off.

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2011, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smart-trees/597947/3 "2011-09-29T00:45:48Z")

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[Geotropism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geotropism).

After you read that, look up phototropism.