Bizarre Tree That Evolved to Use Lightning for Survival

We had an old apple tree growing next to a large, tall boulder, which got hit by lightning. The strikning split the tree all the way to the ground slowly killing the smaller section, about a third - the bigger portion was bent down, growing more or less horizontally. My parents contemplated cutting the tree down the following winter - it was hardly bearing any fruit anyway. But in the autumn the tree was so full of apples that had the tree been standing upright the weight of the apples could have broken the branches. So my parents didn't cut it after all. For the next ten years that tree was the most prolific one of the ten apple trees in our garden, thanks to the lightning that half-killed it, until one spring it only produced a few leaves, and by autumn it was dead.

This is unusually cool. I've seen lots of trees after being struck by lightning, and most of them do ultimately survive, but rarely without severe damage, and never with any advantage to the tree, regardless of whether surrounding flora is killed off or not.

This tree sounds like an ancestor of a science fiction tree described in the story, "Midworld," by Alan Dean Foster. His 'stormtreader' tree stored static charges from lightning strikes and discharged the electricity as a means of defense.

Azula really got reincarnated into a tree 🤣🤣🤣

I used to have a Tonka Truck when I was little... never knew they made trees as well

What's interesting to me about this. Other than it being like Hyperion, is that this could only really happen with trees because most places on earth don't get enough lightning strikes in an area for animals to make use of it. But on the timespan if trees, there are probably a lot more situations where there would be enough lighting strikes in a population over time to drive evolution

Sydney's Blue Mountains were named for the blueish haze that covers the area in summer from all of the volatile chemicals released by the eucalypts. Lightning strikes and the whole place goes up in smoke while the pyro-propagators thrive. It's not quite the same thing but it's still a tree using lightning to clear out pest flora/fauna and create the conditions for seeds to grow.

When I was a kid, the tree we built a tree fort in got hit by lightning. I lived across the road, so needless to say, it was *loud*. 20 some odd years later, I revisited the area, and parts of the fort are still in the tree! That surprised me. But the damage was as wild as I remembered. But it was heavily coated in lichen, which made it look ancient. My dad has since told me (I don't live anywhere near the town, two hours outside of Toronto anymore) that they have since removed the remains of our fort, but it took like 35 years for them to do it, haha.

Very enlightening. 😋🌞

If thor and groot had a kid