The Rainforest Six Wonders
Six wonders: garroting plants, root tangling with stone, old trunks in blossoming, hanging garden, clinging liana and thick board-root.
1. Thick board-root:
The network of the plant is thick and wide so as to reduce the affordability of the trunk, as a result of which the pressed part of the roots usually extend several meters or even more back. However, it distinguishes itself from other roots because part of them exposed in the air, like the wall and a huge roc spreading its wings, making an extension in all directions. The roots firmly supported its huge body to make it rank highly in the rain forest.
The reason why the plants Form the thick board-root is due to the poor soils and drought climate. Such roots could not only support and supply its strong trunk, but also prevent storms and erosion.
The thick board-root
2. Root tangling with stone:
The dense roots of banyan trees tangle around stones. The seeds on the stones began to germinate with appropriate and enough supplements of temperature and water. The aerial roots grow along the stone endlessly, and ultimately hold the stone tightly, forming a tree in a stone. This is the so-called "root tangling with stone." Just like the saying the fittest survival, this kind of root has strong vitality so that it could resist typhoons.
The Root tangling with stone
3. Hanging garden:
Many shade plants – shade-tolerant plants are settled and thrived in the tropical rain forest because of the hot and humid climate. These epiphytic plants adhere to the trunks, branches, leaves and even the surface of thin limbs of other huge plants, embracing the huge trees and developing various leaves and blossoms, which hang in the air. These plants occupy certain layers in forest space. When one views the huge trees covered with these epiphytic plants on the ground it looks like a garden. Due to they are scattered vertically among all layers in rain forest, so it is named “hanging garden”.
The Hanging garden
4. Old trunks in blossoming and Old stem fruiting:
It is a special phenomenon of an old trunk blossoms in tropical rain forest. From the view of evolutionary, the flower belongs to an organ of plants applied to connect plants and insect pollinators, in a position handy and convenient for insect pollinators and other animals to facilitate pollination. Insects and other pollinators mainly make their activities at a certain height under the canopy in tropical rain forest. Branches of adult trees are too high to be held. It is no doubt that the old trunks in blossoming are the most accessible and available for those insects and pollinators by its lower position. Besides these old trunks in blossoming, some are branches; even some plants, like the Palm-type plants, not only flower from their stalks, but also generate huge drooping inflorescence, which is called whip flowers. Both these two kinds of flowers are resulted from the tree’s adaptation to insect pollinators.
The Old stem fruiting
5. Garroting plants:
Most of the killers in tropical rain forest are banyan-type plants, such as Ficus gibbosas, Ficus cyrtophyllas and Ficus virens or something. After The fruits of these banyan plants were ate by birds, the seeds are excreted on other arbors. Given appropriate conditions, like sun lights, water and temperature, the seeds could sprout with its aerial roots creeping to the ground along the host tree so as to snatch nutrients and water from the latter. As time goes by, the aerial roots extend wider and wider and form a network in order to tightly wale the trunk of the host trees. By so doing, the garroted trees are withered because of the pressure from the outside and lack of enough nutrients. Finally, the killer developed into an independent tree by replacing the withered one. This is a brief process of garroting phenomenon in tropical rain forest. And these killers are called garroting plants. The biggest garroting tree is honored as king of garroting plants.
The Garroting plants
6. Clinging liana:
Some plants can not grow vertically because of lack of sunlight and water in the rain forest. They have no choice but to cling to other plants so as to share more sunlight but not nutrients. Therefore, several different-types plants can live together in harmony.
The clinging liana