desert tree with cool survival technique
 

I know of a shrub, manzanita (Arctostaphylos spp.) which often has one
strip of living bark and wood connecting shoots with roots. You would see a
seemingly dead bush, with just one leafy shoot and one stripe of red down an
otherwise bleached-out trunk.

Iris Cohen schreef
I assure you it still has all the requisite parts, including the cambium
layer.
Iris

+ + +
I guess that if it were really to come down to it a tree with living wood
only will have a better chance of 'survival' than a tree with living bark
only. Trees store their reserves in the wood. Wood often contain 'spare'
growth points, from which a new axis can sprout. This will be a poor grade
of survival, at least in the short term.

Loss of bark and cambium will almost always result in the death of the
tree-as-it-existed-before.

It is somewhat academic anyway since much of the wood holding the reserves
will be in the roots, which presumably must be more or less intact for any
chance of survival to remain.
PvR