Tree Bark – Interesting Facts and Information

Bark is the outer protective covering of a tree.  It adapts to protect a living tree from the environment and shields delicate tissues from diseases and harmful insect attacks.

Fact: Bark thickness varies in different species of trees.  The protective covering of the madrone, also known as the madroño, madroña, bearberry, or strawberry tree, is very thin, but the bark on a few of the giant sequoia trees in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is two feet thick!

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service the total annual United States production of bark may be well above 20 million tons.  Since one of the major costs in processing any natural material is the cost of collection, bark, for which collection costs have already been paid, has become increasingly attractive as a potential raw material.

Bark is composed of non living tissue on the outside and living tissue on the inside.   The history and modern uses of bark, on SavATree.com, reports that for centuries the people of the Amazon basin have harvested the fibers from tree bark and used it to make a variety of functional objects.

Most commonly used to make baskets, bark was also used to craft canoes and corks.

Fact: Canoes have been in use for over 3000 years.

The first Canadian canoes were made with paper birch bark.  It took many labor-intensive hours complete but they turned out to be amazingly durable.  Now canoes are produced using a synthetic equivalent of birch bark.  Birch bark is still widely used in the production of souvenirs in Europe.

All bark contains some cork.  Cork oak trees produce enough of this substance to make it economical to harvest and it is not necessary for the tree to be cut down.  Dead bark can be stripped from the tree without harming it as long as the stripping is done carefully to ensure the living inner bark is not damaged and if it is done at intervals of at least ten years.  The first stripping takes place when the tree is twenty years old and produces poor-quality cork.  The second stripping occurs ten years later and produces better cork.  High-grade cork is not produced until the tree is at least fifty years old.  These trees continue to bear cork for two hundred years and the quality improves after each ten-year stripping until it reaches its peak.

Fact: Imported cork oaks grow in California but the oldest and most productive trees are native to the western Mediterranean Sea area.

In certain areas of the world, bark has been used for years to create extravagant clothing.  South America, Africa, Japan and South East Asia were all pioneers in the creation of bark clothing such as belts, headdresses and caps.  Similar to the Amazonians, cloth was produced and manufactured into capes, blankets and other articles of clothing.  Wearing clothing made from bark was a sign of wealth and was strictly worn by the elite upper class.

The uses of bark are unlimited and viable. There is an enormous amount of research being conducted in the medical field to determine the benefits of bark.  Researchers recently declared that anti inflammatory compounds called phenolics found in the bark of Scotch pine may prove effective in fighting arthritis.

Fact: Scotch pine is the number one selling Christmas tree.

Researchers believe that pine bark extract might potentially treat various health problems such as high blood pressure, asthma and heart disease.

Willow bark extract is currently being used and prescribed in Europe to treat lower back pain.  A popular anesthetic, tubocurarine, is extracted from bark.  There are also a few cancer drugs that are extracted from bark such as the South African cape bush willow which supplies treatments for lung and ovarian cancer.

Fact: The main ingredient in aspirin, salicylic acid, is obtained from poplar and willow bark.

An oil in the young bark of an evergreen tree native to Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) produces a spicy cinnamon flavor.  The bark is peeled from young twigs, tightly rolled then and dried to produce cinnamon sticks often used to season hot tea or holiday drinks.  Powdered cinnamon is merely ground bark from this tree