A revelation about plants and trees.

[bobcat]

I had always believed that plants and trees grew from the ground up because that's the way it appears. They take in nutrients and water and just grow in size.
Interestingly though, as the plant or tree grows, the soil in the pot or the ground beneath the tree stays relatively the same. That escaped me somehow.

Well, I just found out that my mental concept was flawed. That's not how they grow in size and mass. Their mass comes from the air (co2 to be exact).
I knew that they took in Co2 and released Oxygen, but I thought it's just what plants do. Apparently, the carbon part is kept and the tree's mass it built from that.
To summarize, trees and plant's grow mostly from what's in the air, not nutrients or water (Although they do use them as necessary tools).
After all these years, I never connected the dots. Wow! When I look at a big tree, it's just mind blowing to realize that the majority of that materialized from thin air and the wonders of nature.

 

[Sunkist]

I had always believed that plants and trees grew from the ground up because that's the way it appears. They take in nutrients and water and just grow in size.
Interestingly though, as the plant or tree grows, the soil in the pot or the ground beneath the tree stays relatively the same. That escaped me somehow.

Well, I just found out that my mental concept was flawed. That's not how they grow in size and mass. Their mass comes from the air (co2 to be exact).
I knew that they took in Co2 and released Oxygen, but I thought it's just what plants do. Apparently, the carbon part is kept and the tree's mass it built from that.
To summarize, trees and plant's grow mostly from what's in the air, not nutrients or water (Although they do use them as necessary tools).
After all these years, I never connected the dots. Wow! When I look at a big tree, it's just mind blowing to realize that the majority of that materialized from thin air and the wonders of nature.

Interesting info.. thanks for posting it!

 

[Grampa Don]

If you eat the plant, that's where your carbon comes from too. That's also true if you eat an animal that ate a plant.


Not only that, your entire body, including bones was once a liquid carried by your blood stream. You are liquid and gas made solid.

 

[gruntlabor]

Off topic
Chlorophyll and hemoglobin share a nearly identical molecular structure.

 

[bobcat]

Off topic
Chlorophyll and hemoglobin share a nearly identical molecular structure.

View attachment 488725

Wow, that is amazing. It's likely that evolution often reuses successful molecular designs. I had no idea there were such striking similarities in structure. That's really cool.

 

[gruntlabor]

Wow, that is amazing. It's likely that evolution often reuses successful molecular designs. I had no idea there were such striking similarities in structure. That's really cool.

Either that or maybe there's a real relationship between the two divisions of life.

 

[HoneyNut]

Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580–1644), a Belgian chemist and physiologist, is the scientist famous for the willow tree experiment. Around 1630, he weighed a pot of soil and a willow sapling, added only water for five years, and found the tree gained 74 kg while the soil lost almost no weight, concluding (incorrectly) that trees are made of water.

Key Details of the Experiment:
The Findings: Van Helmont showed that plants do not gain the majority of their mass from soil.
The Misconception: While he proved it wasn't the soil, he mistakenly thought the mass came solely from the water he added.
The Reality: The mass actually comes from carbon dioxide absorbed from the air via photosynthesis, a concept unknown at the time.