Trees

Trees are very important. They are the homes of many birds and animals. They give us food, for example, fruit and nuts. People make different things from trees, for example, paper.

How do you find out the age of a tree? Every year the tree

grows a little and a ring grows round the trunk of the tree. When people cut down the tree, you can count the number of rings in the trunk to tell the age of the tree. In 1964 a woodcutter cut down a tree and counted 4,900 rings inside the tree!

Today the tallest tree in the world is a redwood tree in the United States

of America. It is 112 metres tall.

The smallest trees in the world do not grow in forests. They are bonsai trees. Some bonsai trees are very old, and all bonsai trees are very small. Their leaves and fruit are small, too.

People plant bonsai trees in very small trays and do not give them much

water. The trees do not die, but they grow very slowly.