Weird Trees

Money doesn’t come from trees, but something almost as unlikely does: rubber. The tires on your car weren’t unwrapped from tree trunks, as it were, although their basic component originally was a milky fluid called latex, which is tapped from trees. Some rubber trees can produce up to four pounds of crude rubber each year. Most rubber tree plantations operate in Southeast Asia.

Rubber tires were developed during the mid-1800s by such inventors as Charles Goodyear and John Boyd Dunlop. Over time, experimenters learned to strengthen them with chemicals and fabrics. Auto tires today are made of both natural and synthetic or reinforced rubber.

Speaking of trees. . . . Did you know the ginkgo, considered sacred in China, is from a tree family that dates to the Mesozoic Era (roughly 65 to 240 million years ago)? Scientists refer to it as a “living fossil.”