Trunks grow from within and a cross-section of a tree’s trunk would show rings of light and dark coloured wood. One dark and one light coloured ring signifies a year of growth, that is why the age of a tree can be calculated by counting the number of rings inside its trunk. As the trunk grows, it forms a rough scaly surface on the outside called a ‘bark’. Young trees have smoother barks, but as trees grow older the bark becomes scaly, cracks and eventually falls off. New bark is in the meanwhile being generated from within. A tree’s bark prevents the inner wood from losing water and drying out and protects the tree from fungus and moulds. Since wood from trees can be put to a very large number of uses, constant cutting down of trees has led to deforestation all over the world and the world’s forest reserves have reduced substantially. Conservationists are today planting fast growing species of trees in order to restore the forest resources.
