Did anyone not take care of their kid equipped with colorful markers? Look at this tree! That can’t be normal!
But it is. Eucalyptus deglupta, also called the rainbow eucalyptus, is the most colorful tree you will ever see. Or not see, depending on where you live. Because in contrary to most other eucalyptus trees, this one does not grow in Australia! And it can’t just be found on the southern but also on the northern hemisphere
Where? Well, you can look for it on the Philippines, in Indonesia or in Papua New Guinea. The tree has been exported to some other countries too because of its looks. Who wouldn’t want such a pretty thing in their backyard?
Now, why does it look like this?
The tree can grow up to 60 meters tall and it grows really fast. Did you ever get stretch marks from when you either grew a lot, gained a lot of weight or developed a significant amount of muscle mass? Your skin just couldn’t keep up and ripped a little bit.
Something similar happens to the rainbow eucalyptus. The bark rips and reveals a bright green layer underneath.
This layer starts to darken with time and the color changes from bright green to dark green to blue, purple, orange and maroon. When it reaches the maroon stage it falls off the tree. This happens over and over again. And because it doesn’t happen everywhere at once, the tree develops several streaks of different colors.
I wish my stretch marks would look that pretty!
And what is this tree used for?
As I mentioned before, people like to use it for decoration but the wood can also be used to craft stuff or make paper.
How does the paper look? Colorful?
No. Sadly, it is just as white as normal paper.
How disappointing.
Sources:
The Colorful Life of the Rainbow Eucalyptus
Rainbow Eucalyptus, One of Costa Rica’s Hidden Gems
Picture by amelia
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/amelia525/303049143/) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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fascinating !!
Hi @suesa, hope you're doing good. well, you choose a very interesting topic. I was not aware of this amazing tree but recently I have to do some research on trees for my daughter and accidentally I got a very detailed BLOG regarding Rainbow Eucalyptus Tree. Here is link of that blog, I'm sure you will enjoy:
source
Keep posting Natural Stuff @suesa, Stay blessed!
A 60 meters hippie. Chlorophyll and tannins sure went artist with this one, the thing that still surprises me is the shades of blue in some of these threes. Geez, I'll have to read David Lee's Nature's palette. Long due.
It's always fascinating what kind of colors nature can produce :D
At first glance it seemed like someone had used too much saturation while editing the image...lol!
Good to know about colorful trees - to me most of them have only brown at the trunk and green at the leaves. Though I do know that each shade of brown and green is different for each tree. Maybe that's how trees recognize each other - other than their location that is.
That's a good one, though it is possible to get colored paper later.
Yes but isn't it incredibly boring that the paper has to be dyes to be colorful? :D
Trees can actually communicate via different chemicals (through the air or ground) or mushroom networks. Trees like the walnut tree poison thw ground around themselves to prevent new walnut trees from growing too closely.
In fact, many plants produce poisons that keep very specific plants from growing in the same place.
Plants are assholes.
^^Very useful information - can talk about it in brag sessions about trees! Thank you :-).
i love science and good work my friend 😍
such science much wow
We have Eucalyptus trees in our backyard. Not the type mentioned above. This is an interesting post. Thank You @suesa.
Keep posting, informing and supporting the Steemit audience. People love your posts.
Steem On!
Amazing
let's save the Rainbow Eucalyptus!
Yes. What can we do on Steemit about this, based on this image?
Nice post.
nice post.
its useful.
thanks for sharing @suesa
Insteresting....
@suesa fascinating facts - in fact that looks like an artists dream to paint - I may just go and find some pictures to draw ideas from. Thank you for this.
Have fun drawing! If you upload a rainbow eucalyptus drawing, comment the link on here so I can check it out!
love your style and the quality of your posts! you've really found a niche and have a great presentation! as a newcomer, happily learning from you :)
What a fascinating plant. I never knew that it existed.
I've seen similar trees in the US. Not quite as colorful, but with similar patterns of bark. Now I'm wondering what they were...
Wouldn't it be something if the same thing happened to people? Pregnancies would come with rainbows.
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