I was in the jungle of Tortuguero in north east Costa Rica,
and was shown some trees that they called Walking Trees.
They stood up in the air on their roots and actually could
move a little distance each year. I believe they said their
name was something like "Makainki" but I cannot find that
word.

Can someone tell me the proper name for the Walking Tree
in Costa Rica?

They stood up in the air on their roots and actually could move a little
distance each year. BRBR

How?
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming
train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)

See picture at
http://boonedocks.net/pa/pa.php?p:339:s:15

"Iris Cohen" wrote in message
...
They stood up in the air on their roots and actually could move a
little
distance each year. BRBR

How?
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming
train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)

In article 4cqNa.1716$7e.1643@fed1read07, wrote...

I was in the jungle of Tortuguero in north east Costa Rica,
and was shown some trees that they called Walking Trees.
They stood up in the air on their roots and actually could
move a little distance each year. I believe they said their
name was something like "Makainki" but I cannot find that
word.

Can someone tell me the proper name for the Walking Tree
in Costa Rica?

Didn't recall the name "walking tree", but lots of trees in CR
and elsewhere do form stilt roots.

Searching for "walking tree" finds a few sites with pictures
but no scientific names:

http://www.robjensen.com/month_featu...es/costa19.jpg
http://www.chenry.com/PhotoAlbum/Cos...3/P0000160.JPG
http://www.worldexperience.com/pv.ht...0&FileType=jpg

might all be palms with large stilt roots. I recall _Iriartea_ species
and Socratea species as both being like this.

http://www.rachaelvanfleet.com/maste...ica/costa.html

looks like an Socratea-type palm to me.

http://llk.media.mit.edu/projects/eThinking/tree.html

doesn't give a name.

http://jajhs.kana.k12.wv.us/amazon/question.htm#ques1

asks your same question, but is just told that there are many
trees with stilt roots.

The "walking tree" in

http://www.photo.net/cr/walking-tree-chantal.jpg

isn't a palm, and I doubt it can "walk"

http://www.trentu.ca/biology/TEWebPa...dplantlist.htm

lists both Iriartea and Socratea species as "walking palm"

http://www.strayreality.com/mystery1.htm
briefly describes Costa Rica's "walking palms"
[Socratea and Iriartea species]

http://www.plantapalm.com/vpe/photos...exorrhizae.htm

looks about right.

http://hk.geocities.com/alhy731/trf/plants.htm

http://bio.bd.psu.edu/biobd497g/Cost...tsandtrees.htm :

"Walking Palm Socratea durissima"

Okay, then.

http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/treat/geonom.html

has this to say:

"Iriartea deltoidea is a widespread and familiar canopy palm,
characterized by its dense cone of blackish, spiny stilt-roots and
pinnately compound lf.-blades with "fish-tail" shaped, praemorse lflts.
disposed in various planes. These features distinguish it from all
other Costa Rican palms except for the related and vegetatively very
similar Socratea exorrhiza. Close at hand, adult specimens of Iriartea
may be told from S. exorrhiza by their darker, more numerous, and more
densely aggregated stilt roots [...]"

[Wet forests, 0--800 m; entire Atl. slope, Pac. slope vic. Palmar Norte
(Fila Retinto) to Pen. Osa. Fl. 1--5, 11--12].

"Socratea exorrhiza is a canopy or subcanopy palm, recognized by its
tall, open cone of brownish, spiny stilt-roots and pinnately compound
lf.-blades with broadly cuneate, praemorse, longitudinally splitting.
lflts., with the segments disposed in various planes. These features
distinguish it sharply from all other Costa Rican palms except for the
very similar and sympatric (though perhaps more widespread) Iriartea
deltoidea, which differs in having a denser cone of blackish stilt-roots
[...]

[Wet forests, 0--750 m; Atl. slope Cords. Central (to RNFS Barra del
Colorado and PN Tortuguero) and Talamanca, Pac. slope V.de El General,
Golfo Dulce region. Fl. 2--3. Extr. SE Nic. to Bol., Fr. Guiana, Braz.]

So, both species may be near Tortuguero. The ones with larger,
looser-spaced lighter-colored stilt roots

http://www.rachaelvanfleet.com/maste...ica/costa.html

would be the Socratea palms, the ones with denser, darker stilts like

http://www.robjensen.com/month_featu...es/costa19.jpg

should be the Iriartea palms.

Hope this helps.

cheers

From: "Alan Jones"


"Iris Cohen" wrote in message
...
They stood up in the air on their roots and actually could move a
little
distance each year.

How?

See picture at
http://boonedocks.net/pa/pa.php?p:339:s:15


To quote from that site, "This tree is known as the 'walking tree' because it
can move. If the tree needs to move, it just grows roots on that side and lets
other roots die. Eventually the tree is relocated."

That would cause the tree to fall over, whice is indeed moving. That tends to
be all at once and not a little bit each year though.

Sean



--
Visit my photolog page; http://members.aol.com/grommit383/myhomepage
Last updated 08-04-02 with 15 pictures of the Aztec Ruins.
Address mungled. To email, please spite my face.

In article ,
ose [Sean Houtman] wrote...
From: "Alan Jones"

They stood up in the air on their roots and actually could move a
little distance each year.

How?

See picture at
http://boonedocks.net/pa/pa.php?p:339:s:15

To quote from that site, "This tree is known as the 'walking tree' because it
can move. If the tree needs to move, it just grows roots on that side and lets
other roots die. Eventually the tree is relocated."

That would cause the tree to fall over, whice is indeed moving. That tends to
be all at once and not a little bit each year though.

Right. It doesn't make sense.

The whole 'walking' idea seems pretty implausible, especially looking
at the symmetrical shape of the cones of stilt roots on these palms.
Even if the new roots were strongly contractile [unlikely], they're
not forming just on one side, and the older roots aren't letting go
as new ones form. If the old roots were dying or being uprooted, and
young roots were contractile, any one-sided new root formation ought
to pull the tree over, and not move it along horizontally while
staying upright.

I suspect it's just a myth based on the 'leglike' appearance of the
stilt roots. [How would anyone ever know if a wild rainforest palm
had moved a few inches or centimeters over a period of years?

Any contrary information?

cheers

http://jajhs.kana.k12.wv.us/amazon/question.htm#ques1

Really scary is the Christopher Walken tree!!!!

http://mvib.no.sapo.pt/walken.jpg


Alan Jones wrote in message
news:4cqNa.1716$7e.1643@fed1read07...
I was in the jungle of Tortuguero in north east Costa Rica,
and was shown some trees that they called Walking Trees.
They stood up in the air on their roots and actually could
move a little distance each year. I believe they said their
name was something like "Makainki" but I cannot find that
word.

Can someone tell me the proper name for the Walking Tree
in Costa Rica?

"This tree is known as the 'walking tree' because it can move. If the tree
needs to move, it just grows roots on that side and lets other roots die.
BRBR
That would cause the tree to fall over,

I looked at the pictures. It is up on these weird stilt roots, something like a
mangrove. You can easily imagine it growing one root at a time in the direction
of more food or water, and one root at a time dying off on the other side.
Look, if a Welwitschia works, no reason why this can't.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming
train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)

"This tree is known as the 'walking tree' because it can move. If the
tree needs to move, it just grows roots on that side and lets other roots
die.

Iris Cohen schreef

I looked at the pictures. It is up on these weird stilt roots, something
like a mangrove. You can easily imagine it growing one root at a time in
the direction of more food or water, and one root at a time dying off on the
other side. Look, if a Welwitschia works, no reason why this can't.
Iris,

+ + +
I can think of reasons why it wouldn't work, but I would not preclude that
it may work. All those pictures show plants on hillsides so they would tend
to move downhill. I don't know enough about stilt roots of palms to say
anything sensible.

It has been shown time and again that truth is stranger than fiction, so who
knows?
PvR

In article , [P
van Rijckevorsel] wrote...
"This tree is known as the 'walking tree' because it can move. If the
tree needs to move, it just grows roots on that side and lets other roots
die.

Iris Cohen schreef

I looked at the pictures. It is up on these weird stilt roots, something
like a mangrove. You can easily imagine it growing one root at a time in
the direction of more food or water, and one root at a time dying off on the
other side. Look, if a Welwitschia works, no reason why this can't.
Iris,

But Welwitschia, odd as it is, stays in one place.

+ + +
I can think of reasons why it wouldn't work, but I would not preclude that
it may work. All those pictures show plants on hillsides so they would tend
to move downhill. I don't know enough about stilt roots of palms to say
anything sensible.

It has been shown time and again that truth is stranger than fiction, so who
knows?

How can the palm move anywhere if the older stilt roots still remain
anchored in the ground and don't actually disintegrate [the photos
seem to clearly show that they don't]? They're "woody", strong and
tough, not at all stretchy. To "walk" the tree might be expeced to
pick up its feet.

And even if all the older roots did die away as described above
[again,not shown in any of the photos] how would the formation of
new stilt roots cause the tree to move directionally, if they don't
forcibly contract after penetrating the ground? They would just
continue to prop it in its original place.

Maybe a tree something like this could move along while standing
erect if the stilt roots on the "moving toward" side are highly
contractile and exerting powerful tensile forces that are being neatly
balanced by similar pulls by most of the other stilt roots, while those
roots on the "moving away from" side gradually yield and let go, all of
them continually being lost and replaced by later-formed roots.

But then, the whole stilt root systems of the tree wouldn't look much
like the ones in in the photos. These look like sturdy permanent props,
not a system of short-lived taught cables that could be pulling the
tree along "hand over hand". And again, the early-formed stilt roots
still appear to be firmly rooted; they evidently aren't being uprooted
and dragged along the ground...

I'll bet these palms really don't even budge [apart from during
earthquakes and landslides].

For a weird plant that really does make tracks, a favorite example is
the "creeping devil" cactus from Baja California [Stenocereus eruca or
Machaerocereus eruca]. The large prostrate rooting stems have a typical
cactus growing tip at one end and continually die away at the basal end,
so the thing looks like a big spiny caterpillar as it roots its way
along ["eruca" means "caterpillar"]:

http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plan...eus_eruca.html
http://cactiguide.com/graphics/s_eruca_b_600.jpg
http://www.hortpix.com/pc4100.htm
http://cactiguide.com/Stenocereus.htm

cheers

mel turner schreef
[snip]
I'll bet these palms really don't even budge [apart from during
earthquakes and landslides].

+ + +
Good points. Still I can envision a palm on a hillside being dragged
gradually downhill and being either propped up or being pulled upright by
roots (likely only one or the other mechanism, not both). But this is pure
conjecture. Even at best it won't be a large scale phenomenon (either in
distance covered or number of plants involved).
PvR

"P van Rijckevorsel" wrote in message
...
mel turner schreef
[snip]
I'll bet these palms really don't even budge [apart from during
earthquakes and landslides].

+ + +
Good points. Still I can envision a palm on a hillside being dragged
gradually downhill and being either propped up or being pulled upright by
roots (likely only one or the other mechanism, not both). But this is pure
conjecture. Even at best it won't be a large scale phenomenon (either in
distance covered or number of plants involved).
PvR



When I returned from the last Amazon trip I asked about walking palms on our
Palm list. The locals had told me anecdotes about the stilt palms (Socratea
and Iriartea species) moving into brighter light, growing the new roots
preferentially. I got no scientific answers from the list as to the
validity of the stories. One poster from Thailand verified that a Socratea
(imported from new world) growing in his extensive palm garden had moved
many feet over the years. After reading a bunch of anecdotes posted on the
list of palm enthusiasts, I decided it still may be a myth. No one cited
any journal reports.
Rick

How can the palm move anywhere if the older stilt roots still remain
anchored in the ground and don't actually disintegrate [the photos seem to
clearly show that they don't]? BRBR

There must be some research available that would settle the question. Has
anyone looked in AGRICOLA?
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming
train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)

Has anyone looked in AGRICOLA? BRBR

After asking that, I looked myself. There is one article available on stilt
roots in tropical palms.
Further searching revealed that the best-known species of the tropical stilt
rooted palms are
A HREF="http://www.pacsoa.org.au/palms/Iriartea/deltoidea.html" Iriartea
deltoidea/A.
and A HREF="http://www.pacsoa.org.au/palms/Socratea/exorrhiza.html"PACSOA -
Socratea exorrhiza/A

There is no mention anywhere of any of these trees "walking", so the whole
thing may be a myth, like the deadliness of the Upas tree.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming
train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)

In article ,
wrote...

Has anyone looked in AGRICOLA? BRBR

After asking that, I looked myself. There is one article available on stilt
roots in tropical palms.
Further searching revealed that the best-known species of the tropical stilt
rooted palms are
A HREF="http://www.pacsoa.org.au/palms/Iriartea/deltoidea.html" Iriartea
deltoidea/A.
and A HREF="http://www.pacsoa.org.au/palms/Socratea/exorrhiza.html"PACSOA -
Socratea exorrhiza/A

There is no mention anywhere of any of these trees "walking", so the whole
thing may be a myth, like the deadliness of the Upas tree.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming
train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)

I also did a database search for (Iriartea or Socratea)
and root*, and at first didn't find much.

Title: ANATOMICAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL STUDY OF THE ADVENTITIOUS ROOTS OF
IRIARTEA-EXORRHIZA THE RASP
PALM AND THEIR GROWTH.
Author, Editor, Inventor: VILHENA-R-C-Q-D {a}; LINS-A; LUNA-M-D-S
ource: Boletim-do-Museu-Paraense-Emilio-Goeldi-Serie-Botanica. 1984
(RECD. 1985); 1 (1-2): 87-110.
Language: PORTUGESE
Abstract: I. exorrhiza is a common palm tree in the Brazilian Amazon
region, remarkable because of its stilt roots. The external morphology,
growth, and anatomy of the aerial stilt roots were studied from the
time of their erupting from the trunk and breaching the bark until they
became anchored in the soil. Chemical analysis of the root tissues and
of the covering mucilaginous secretion were performed. The mucilage
which flows from canals in wounded roots is rich in crystals of calcium
oxalate. The rate of initiation and the growth rate of stilt roots are
correlated with rainfall. Daily growth rate of the roots was 4.13-7.94
cm.

No mention of "walking".

Still, it'd be fascinating if there is a novel mechanism at work
enabling these trees to actually move around, but it sounds like
if so, maybe no-one has studied it?

looking elsewhere, I found

Author(s): Schatz, G.E. ; Williamson, G.B. ; Cogswell, C.M. ;
Stam, A.C.
Title: Stilt roots and growth of arboreal palms.
Source: Biotropica. 17, no. 3 (Sept 1985): p. 206-209. ill.
Additional Info: Fairfax, Va. : Association for Tropical Biology.
Publishing Agencies: US Imprint, not USDA
Abstract: Patterns in the growth of palms support the hypothesis that
stilt roots enable arboreal palms to produce an axis early in their
development. The height of stilt roots is positively related to axis
diameter for Socratea durissima and Iriartea gigantea. Both species
achieve greater heights per unit diameter earlier in development than
the non-stilt root species Welfia georgii;[SNIP]

Talks about the roots function in supporting the plants growth,
but no mention of walking.

But finally, I found this one promising-seeming one:

Author(s): Bodley, J.H. ; Benson, F.C.
Title: Stilt-root walking by an iriarteoid palm Socratea exorrhiza in
the Peruvian Amazon.
Source: Biotropica. Mar 1980. v. 12 (1) : p. 67-71. ill. ISSN:
0006-3606 Additional Info: Fairfax, Va., Association for Tropical
Biology. Publishing Agencies: US Imprint, not USDA
Abstract: The aerial stilt roots of Socratea exorrhiza allow this palm
literally to pick itself up and "walk" out from under fallen limbs and
obstacles that are major hazards for immature palms. The lower trunk
and older roots rot away and are left behind as the tree sends out new
roots and moves away from its germination point.

I just looked at this article, and it's a bit disappointing: the
"walking" is actually quite clearly documented, but its just a
mechanism by which relatively small juvenile palm plants right
themselves after being flattened by falling tree limbs, debris, etc.
The "walking" is just the formation of new stilt roots along the
now-horizontal segmant of the trunk of the flattened young plant,
and the eventual bending upward of the growing tip to form a new
erect trunk. The flattened juvenile "walks" basically by behaving
a bit like a creeping rhizome, then bending upright at the tip and
reestablishing vertical growth a few inches to a few feet away from
the original base of the palm. The righting proces may take years
[the flattened juveniles are reportedly set back in their
development].

So, there's likely no exotic "walking" mechanism involved, just a
knocked-over juvenile palm stem rooting along its length.
Apparently the large adult plants with their prominent stilts
don't use them to walk [at least the article illustrates them but
doesn't mention walking by them].

cheers