From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Buttress root

Large, wide roots on all sides of a shallowly rooted tree

Summary

Large, wide roots on all sides of a shallowly rooted tree

Buttress roots of a Bay fig tree at South Coast Botanical Garden in Palos Verdes, California

Buttress roots of a colossal cotton-silk kapok in Lal Bagh gardens in Bangalore (Bengaluru), India

Buttress roots, also known as plank roots or stilt roots, are large, wide roots on all sides of a shallowly rooted tree. Typically, they are found in nutrient-poor tropical forest soils that may not be very deep. They may prevent the tree from falling over, hence the name buttress.

Buttresses are tension elements, being larger on the side away from the stress of asymmetrical canopies. The roots may intertwine with buttress roots from other trees and create an intricate mesh, which may help support trees surrounding it. They can grow up to 9 m tall, spread for 30 m above the soil, and then continue another 30 metres horizontally below ground level. When the roots spread horizontally, they are able to cover a wider area for collecting nutrients. They stay near the upper soil layer because all the main nutrients are found there.

Notable and historic specimen trees with buttress roots

Ceiba pentandra of Vieques, Puerto Rico
Moreton Bay fig (Ficus macrophylla) in Queensland, Australia
Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus), India
Terminalia arjuna, India
Koompassia excelsa, Southeast Asia

Gallery

File:Buttress roots. Jensen's Crossing near Cooktown, Australia. 1988.jpg| Buttress roots. Jensen's Crossing near Cooktown, Australia. 1988 File:Terminalia arjuna trunk 03 by Line1.JPG|Buttress roots of Terminalia arjuna File:Buttress root system..jpg|A buttress root system provides structural support. File:CeibaTreePeru02.jpg|Buttress roots of an especially large Ceiba tree near shore of Amazon River, close to Iquitos, Peru File:Koompassia excelsa.png|The large buttress roots of Koompassia excelsa File:Buttress root.jpg|A bulbous buttress root

References

Young, T. P. and V. Perkocha. "Treefalls, crown asymmetry, and buttresses". ''Journal of Ecology'' 82:319-324.
(1997). "The function of buttress roots: a comparative study of the anchorage systems of buttressed (''Aglaia'' and ''Nephelium ramboutan'' species) and non-buttressed (''Mallotus wrayi'') tropical trees". Journal of Experimental Botany.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

plant-roots trees

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Buttress root — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report