Did You Really Think Those Things Grew on Trees?

—Michael Penziner, FRNC Docent

19th-century botanical illustration of a banana plant.

You do know that money doesn't grow on trees, don't you?  How about coconuts? Or bananas?  Or dates?  None of them do, you know. They all do grow on plants (not money, of course) but those plants aren't trees. They may look like trees, but they're not because they don't fit the definition of a tree.  A tree is at least 16 feet tall at maturity with a defined crown, and having a single woody trunk.  So the governing word is woody.  Which they are not.

The banana plant is the world's largest perennial herb (that simply means a non-woody seed  plant that dies down to the ground at the end of the growing season), and to enlighten you further, the banana is properly called a berry.  The stem can get up to about 25 feet high, the leaves of the plant reach nine feet long, and there's nothing woody about it at all.  

Coconuts grow on palms. Note: not palm trees, because palms aren't trees. They may appear to be trees, but they're not. They do not have bark and they do not have rings telling the age.  And if you think calling a banana a berry is funny, think about the coconut. It can be called a fruit or a seed or a nut, but the technical name is a drupe, which is also what a peach or an olive is. In fact, the word drupe means an overripe olive.  The name "coconut" derives from the Spanish and Portuguese word for head, coco.  

As to dates, they too grow on palms which reach 70-75 feet tall, and sport leaves from 13-20 feet long. Dates have been in cultivation for almost 10,000 years, and recently a 2000 year old seed was successfully sprouted and is thriving.  That holds the record for the oldest viable seed.

And just one more example: there is something called a tree fern, but it isn't a tree in spite of the name.  It is a fern that grows perhaps 30 or 40 feet high and looks like a tree, but it's held aloft by a fibrous mass of rootlets, not wood.

The Rye Nature Center is just filled with trees, real trees of all kinds and sizes.  If you've never taken a walk through our forest, or if you'd like to learn more about trees, call for an appointment and we'll provide you with a guide who'll show you around and explain the whole thing.