These Early Trees Has a Very Odd and Mysterious Way of Growing

Amaze Lab

This might look like strangely textured stone, but it’s actually the fossilized remains of a prehistoric forest. They say this tree stump dates back some 390 million years, when life on our planet was first stretching out onto land. Now experts say it had a strange way of growing by literally ripping itself apart.

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00:00This might look like strangely textured stone, but it's actually the fossilized remains of a

00:08prehistoric forest. Experts say this tree stump dates back some 390 million years,

00:14when life on our planet was still stretching out onto land. That means these are quite possibly

00:19the first trees to ever grow on dry soil, and experts say they had a strange never-before-seen

00:23quark that let them do so. The tree fossils were discovered in southwest England, and they date

00:28back to the Dynovian period. The forest in which these trees would have resided would not have

00:32looked anything like the ones we know today, as grasses would not have existed on land yet.

00:37The trees were also bizarre-looking, like this artist's rendering. Experts say the trunks of

00:41the trees were hollow, with strands inside that brought water up from the ground. And when they

00:45wanted to grow taller, they would literally rip themselves apart, tearing their own connective

00:50tissue as they reached up to a maximum height of just 13 feet. With the study's co-author, Dr. Chris

00:55Barry, saying that there is no other tree in the history of the Earth that has ever done anything

00:59as complicated as this, explaining, the tree simultaneously ripped its skeleton apart and

01:05collapsed under its own weight, while staying alive and growing upwards and outwards to become

01:10the dominant plant of its day.

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