A Snapple cap talked about the square trees of Panama. I didn’t believe it for a second and I still don’t despite finding Panama’s El Valle de Anton – Where Trees Are Square - complete with pictures - online.
What’s the story behind this? Colibri, I blame you somehow.
They don’t look that strange. It’s not like they have sharp corners.
There is an explanation.
Its been replicated before, with the research done by the top doper …Whatever happened to that plan to grow square trees? - The Straight Dope
So it seems that the rocks under those trees encourage square tree trunks.
Trunks grow at the base and push up. So as the get squashed by the stones and/OR their own root structure, they come up square…
I’d like to see the cross section of one.
When I was touring New Zealand some time ago, the group I was with viewed a hexagonal kauri tree. It was the only large tree standing in the area we were at. The loggers had left it standing because of its unusual shape. I tried to find something on the web about it, but only found stuff about a square kauri tree.
here are some square watermelons
I’ve been there. I was not impressed. They’re actually just kind of squarish (not “hard right angles,” as the article alleges), and I think there’s like three or four of them.
I’ve never heard a real explanation for them. It may be a coincidence that a few trees grew up in that form close to one another, or it may be that growing between angular rocks on an old rockfall produced the angles in the trunks.
Here’s a photo of a normal trunk of the species in question,Quararibea asterolepis, which you can see is kind of angular anyway. It’s not a “cottonwood,” as the site says, but a member of the kapok and baobab tree family.
Well, I would think that if they have to put a sign pointing at a tree saying “Square tree” then they are neither conspicuous in their numbers or the squareness of their trunks.
This is really one of those semi-bogus tourist attractions you see in resort areas. El Valle de Anton is a small town in the mountains about two hours drive from Panama City which is a weekend getaway. Everybody has heard of the “square trees of El Valle,” but when you get there it’s nothing much. They’re up a little trail off a far corner of the town.
Other attractions around El Valle are La India Dormida, a mountain that’s supposed to look like a sleeping Indian maiden, and La Piedra Pintada, a rock with pre-Columbian petroglyphs on it.
Is there a story about how she fell asleep waiting for her lover to return from war or a quest? There usually is some story like that to go along with the sleeping Indian maiden mountains. I think I have heard about 3 from various different mountains.
In the versions I have heard of this legend she died instead of falling asleep.
Cool site! Now on my Favorites list, since I’m all about oddities and trivia and such. Check out the thing on spiders on their Home page! I could do without spiders!
:dubious: Tree trunks don’t “grow at the base and push up”, cells replicate at the tips giving them height and branch growth and in the cambium giving them diameter growth.
My best guess for the square trees would be four evenly spaced main root branches and a tree species that is susceptible to fluting and root flare. I’ll give you that it is probably fissures in the underlying rock that create the four main root branches.
