Rain Forest
What type of amazon rain forest trees have giant buttress roots?
Trees in the amazon rain forest the have buttress roots taller than people
Hey Helmet 1,
There are four very distinct layers of trees in a tropical rain forest. These layers have been identified as the emergent, upper canopy, understory, and forest floor.
Emergent trees are spaced wide apart, and are 100 to 240 feet tall with umbrella-shaped canopies that grow above the forest. Because emergent trees are exposed to drying winds, they tend to have small, pointed leaves. Some species lose their leaves during the brief dry season in monsoon rainforests. These giant trees have straight, smooth trunks with few branches. Their root system is very shallow, and to support their size they grow buttresses that can spread out to a distance of 30 feet.
The upper canopy of 60 to 130 foot trees allows light to be easily available at the top of this layer, but greatly reduced any light below it. Most of the rainforest’s animals live in the upper canopy. There is so much food available at this level that some animals never go down to the forest floor. The leaves have “drip spouts” that allows rain to run off. This keeps them dry and prevents mold and mildew from forming in the humid environment.
Dipterocarpaceae is a family of 17 genera and approximately 500 species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. The family name, from the type genus Dipterocarpus, is derived from Greek (di = two, pteron = wing and karpos = fruit) and refers to the two-winged fruit. The largest genera are Shorea (196 species), Hopea (104 species), Dipterocarpus (70 species), and Vatica (65 species)[1]. Many are large forest emergent species, typically reaching heights of 40-70 m tall, some even over 80 m (in the genera Dryobalanops[1], Hopea[2] and Shorea[2]), with the tallest known living specimen (Shorea faguetiana) 88.3 m tall[2]. The species of this family are of major importance in the timber trade. Their distribution is pantropical, from northern South America to Africa, the Seychelles, India, Indochina and Malaysia, with the greatest diversity and abundance in eastern Malaysia. Some species are now endangered as a result of overcutting, extensive illegal logging and habitat conversion. They provide valuable woods, aromatic essential oils, balsam, resins and are a source for plywood.
Amazon Rainforest Relaxation Video
