Bark (botany)

The bark of Pinus thunbergii is made up of countless shiny layers.

Bark is the outermost layer of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines, and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term.[1] It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner bark, which in older stems is living tissue, includes the innermost layer of the periderm. The outer bark on older stems includes the dead tissue on the surface of the stems, along with parts of the outermost periderm and all the tissues on the outer side of the periderm. The outer bark on trees which lies external to the living periderm is also called the rhytidome.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]

Products derived from bark include bark shingle siding and wall coverings, spices, and other flavorings, tanbark for tannin, resin, latex, medicines, poisons, various hallucinogenic chemicals, and cork. Bark has been used to make cloth, canoes, and ropes and used as a surface for paintings and map making.[12] A number of plants are also grown for their attractive or interesting bark colorations and surface textures or their bark is used as landscape mulch.[13][14]

The process of removing bark is decortication and a log or trunk from which bark has been removed is said to be decorticated.[15][16][17][18][19]

  1. ^ Raven, Peter H.; Evert, Ray F.; Curtis, Helena (1981), Biology of Plants, New York, N.Y.: Worth Publishers, p. 641, ISBN 0-87901-132-7, OCLC 222047616
  2. ^ "rhytidome, n.", Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2 March 2023, doi:10.1093/oed/1202365019, retrieved 9 October 2023
  3. ^ Larson, Philip R. (1994), "Defining the Cambium", The Vascular Cambium, Springer Series in Wood Science, Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 33–97, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-78466-8_4, ISBN 978-3-642-78468-2, retrieved 9 October 2023
  4. ^ "Growing Shrubs and Vines", Shrubs and Vines of Iowa, University of Iowa Press, pp. 215–222, doi:10.2307/j.ctt20p57wz.12, retrieved 9 October 2023
  5. ^ Cells Tissues Organs. S. Karger AG. doi:10.1159/issn.1422-6405. S2CID 138777755.
  6. ^ "Periderm". AccessScience. doi:10.1036/1097-8542.498200. Retrieved 9 October 2023.
  7. ^ "Growing Woody Plants for Experimental Purposes", Woody Plants and Woody Plant Management, CRC Press, pp. 545–558, 29 March 2001, doi:10.1201/9781482270563-23, ISBN 9780429078057, retrieved 9 October 2023
  8. ^ Specification for percussive rock-drilling bits, rods and stems. Integral stems, BSI British Standards, doi:10.3403/30309158, retrieved 9 October 2023
  9. ^ Meeting Trees, Indiana University Press, doi:10.2307/j.ctv3c0tgz.2, retrieved 9 October 2023
  10. ^ "What the bark tells me of the tree...", Bark, The MIT Press, pp. 114–121, 2017, doi:10.7551/mitpress/11239.003.0021, ISBN 9780262342629, retrieved 9 October 2023
  11. ^ Vines, Sydney Howard; Vines, Sydney Howard (1898). An elementary text-book of botany, by Sydney H. Vines ... London: S. Sonnenschein & Co. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.22654.
  12. ^ Taylor, Luke. 1996. Seeing the Inside: Bark Painting in Western Arnhem Land. Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  13. ^ Sandved, Kjell Bloch, Ghillean T. Prance, and Anne E. Prance. 1993. Bark: the Formation, Characteristics, and Uses of Bark around the World. Portland, Or: Timber Press.
  14. ^ Vaucher, Hugues, and James E. Eckenwalder. 2003. Tree Bark: a Color Guide. Portland: Timber
  15. ^ Jepson, Willis Linn; Betts, Harold S.; Mell, Clayton D. (1911). California tanbark oak. Part I. Tanbark oak and the tanning industry. Washington: Govt. Print. Off. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.24278.
  16. ^ Pizzi, Antonio (1999), "Tannin Autocondensation and Polycondensation for Zero Emission Tannin Wood Adhesives", Plant Polyphenols 2, Boston, MA: Springer US, pp. 805–821, doi:10.1007/978-1-4615-4139-4_45, ISBN 978-0-306-46218-4, retrieved 9 October 2023
  17. ^ "Contact-pressure resin (contact resin, impression resin, low-pressure resin)", Encyclopedic Dictionary of Polymers, New York, NY: Springer New York, p. 226, 2007, doi:10.1007/978-0-387-30160-0_2815, ISBN 978-0-387-31021-3, retrieved 9 October 2023
  18. ^ "Latex and Lingerie". Latex and Lingerie. 2010. doi:10.5040/9781847888778.
  19. ^ "Hallucinogenic Mushrooms", Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds, Princeton University Press, pp. 172–185, 31 December 2019, doi:10.2307/j.ctvs32r8v.16, S2CID 28656244, retrieved 9 October 2023