Tree meaning (what is it, concept and definition)

What is a Tree:

A tree is a perennial type plant, consisting of a woody trunk of a certain elevation, which branches into a crown. The word, as such, comes from the Latin arbor , arbŏris .

For a plant to be considered a tree, it must have certain characteristics: it must have roots, a height of between two and six meters, a trunk of at least 10 cm and a crown. In the crown, in turn, the branches and leaves will be found. Trees can also produce flowers and fruits.

Trees can live thousands of years, and some, such as redwoods, can exceed heights of over 100 meters.

Trees are very important to the environment: they are a fundamental component of the natural landscape, they produce the oxygen we breathe in the atmosphere, they help to reduce carbon dioxide, they prevent erosion and their foliage offers protection against inclement weather.

The human being uses trees for agriculture and landscaping, as they produce fruits and give beauty to the landscape. Wood, on the other hand, is appreciated for construction and as an energy source.

Trees are constantly threatened, as they are exploited in an immoderate manner by man, thus destroying forests and animal habitats.

Likewise, the tree is also used as a concept or tool by various disciplines of knowledge to illustrate different things, as well as for some world religions, for which the tree is one of the essential elements of their cosmogony.

Tree of Life

An archetypal element that appears in many mythologies around the world is known by the name of the tree of life, and it has a sacred meaning, hence it has a great religious tradition.

For the Judeo-Christian doctrine collected in the Bible, it represents the tree of knowledge, prohibited to Adam and Eve. Mesoamerican cultures relate it to an element that connects the planes of the underworld and the sky with the terrestrial plane. Other pre-Hispanic cultures, such as the piaroas of the Amazon jungle, for example, see Mount Autana as the mythical tree of all fruits.

The expression "tree of life" was also used by Charles Darwin in reference to the tree that shows the evolutionary relationships between different species.

Christmas tree

The Christmas tree is a symbolic and decorative element with which the arrival of Christmas is celebrated. It is decorated with lights, colored balls, foam, garlands and bows, and is topped, at its top, with a star, representing the star of Bethlehem.

Christmas trees can be natural plants (conifers, especially) or artificial, when they are made of plastic or other synthetic materials. Its lights are said to represent the light that Jesus brought into the world when he was born.

Family tree

Genealogical trees or family trees are graphic representations of the relationships between the different members of a family. They are built as a tree-structured diagram.

These types of trees are made in order to know how a family is constituted, which are the ancestors of an individual, which are their descendants and their peers. In this sense, they allow us to better understand the roots and past of a family.

Decisions Tree

Decision trees are prediction models that are built from a series of data in a sequence of logical operations. They serve to represent and categorize a series of conditions that are presented in succession, and to visualize the options and opportunities available. They are used for problem solving and decision making in fields as diverse as economics and computing.

Tree in computing

In computing, a data structure made up of interconnected nodes, whose shape is similar to that of this plant, is known as a tree. This structure is built on a parent node with child nodes connected to it. The node without a parent is known as the root, while the one without a child is called a leaf. Nodes that have both parents and children are called branches.

Camshaft

A mechanism whose purpose is to distribute movements in a synchronized manner to activate other mechanisms that operate at repetitive intervals is known as a camshaft. In this sense, the camshaft is a cyclical timer. It is used, for example, in internal combustion engines for the closing and opening of valves.