Parchment by photosynthesis
Close
Hover over top left image to zoom.
Click anywhere to exit.
Members remain the original copyright holder in all their materials here at Renderosity. Use of any of their material inconsistent with the terms and conditions set forth is prohibited and is considered an infringement of the copyrights of the respective holders unless specially stated otherwise.
Description
I first saw this type of peeling birch bark in New England many years ago, but this one is in front of my neighbor's house...
On it's many uses, as cited by Wikipedia:
"Birch bark was a valuable construction material in any part of the world where birch trees were available. Containers like wrappings, bags, baskets, boxes, or quivers were made by most societies well before pottery was invented. Other uses include:
In various Asian countries (including Siberia) birch bark was used to make storage boxes, paper, tinder, canoes, roof coverings, tents, and waterproof covering for composite bows, such as the Mongol bow, the Chinese bow, Korean bow, Turkish bows, Assyrian bow, the Perso-Parthian bow....etc. It is still being used. More than one variety of birch is used.
In North America, the native population used birch bark for canoes, wigwams, scrolls, ritual art (birch bark biting), maps (including the oldest maps of North America), torches, fans, musical instruments, clothing, and more.
In Scandinavia and Finland, it was used as the substratum of sod roofs and birch-bark roofs, for making boxes, casks and buckets, fishing implements, and shoes (as used by the Egtved Girl).
In Russia, many birch bark manuscripts have survived from the Middle Ages.
Birch bark knife handles are popular tools to be made currently.
In India, birch-bark, along with dried palm leaves, replaced parchment as the primary writing medium. The oldest known Buddhist manuscripts (some of the Gandharan Buddhist Texts), from Afghanistan, were written on birch bark."
Comments (8)
durleybeachbum
I love this stuff. I have such a tree in my garden.
Faemike55
Fascinating information and wonderful picture
kgb224
Amazing capture my friend. God bless.
beachsidelegs
I love the colour of it a wonderful picture and write up my friend :)
sossy
Interesting capture and my first thought was "roofs in norway"! But thanks for the info of the other use of it ☺
Meisiekind
Using the bark does not damage the tree? That is great and a lovely sustainable source.
photosynthesis
Carin, you asked a really interesting question about whether removing bark from a birch tree injures the tree. I really hadn't though about it much, so of course I googled it. It turns out that there really isn't a very simple answer. Some people say you can remove the outer bark without hurting the tree & others say that the tree needs the outer bark as protection. Maybe you can find a clear, scientific answer, but my best guess after reading a few different opinions is that you can probably remove parts of it that are already peeling off without hurting the tree, but that if you remove too much of it, you risk exposing the tree to environmental factors that can harm it.
Jean_C
Very nice capture! Thanks for the infos.
anahata.c
(you know, I always read your comments on comments when I'm commenting in your gallery, but the shame of it is, no ebots go out---as you've mentioned before---so there's no way of knowing if the commenter sees it; but at least we can see it, and I appreciate the intelligence and thought that goes into your comments-on-comments.)
Very saturated capture, with a burst of white coming from this tangled and beautifully folded birch. The bright white allows the folds and convolutions to stand out in contrast. A real eye-popper. And interesting about the uses of birch; we studied some of them in our studies of art from nature; but I didn't know it went nearly that far. A burst of a shot, and the compo makes it a long descending bolt of tree-lightning.