Autumn, stripping the leaves off trees, bare the skeletons hidden inside during the other three seasons. 

We can see the multiple branchings, moving from trunk to main branches to smaller sub-branches to yet smaller sub-sub-branches to the tiny twigs that are the tree’s ultimate stretching forth. 

Like x-rays, these visions of a tree’s skeleton sometimes reveal bolls and notches and twists that reflect afflictions of the past—we can read the history of the tree through these signs. 

Looking at the skeleton of the white birch in our backyard revealed something else—the similarity between tree skeletons and the circulatory system.

The aorta, thick like the trunk, emerges from the heart and branches into the large subclavical and femoral arteries, which, in turn, split into smaller arteries, which, in turn, divide into even smaller ones that end in capillaries that carry life to each far-flung extremity of the body and each organ buried deep within it. 

The similarity between these two systems is more evident with the birch than with, say, the two maples in our backyard. The birch’s trunk is more slender and long and its side branches don’t stretch as far as the maples’ do, giving the tree a more human-body-like shape and scale. Also, its cluster of capillary-twigs more closely resemble the dense masses of capillaries in oarts of the human body: maple twigs extend and fan; birch twigs stick close together. 

This similarity seems an example of how nature repeats forms that are proven to work—although it may also be a coincidence arising from the compelling logic of similarity of function. Inside the tree skeleton, after all, is simply another circulatory system that also carries life throughout the body it sustains. 

Another similar structure can be seen on the face of the Earth—river systems, after all, are circulatory systems writ large.   

People have replicated this structure in transportation systems—streets, roads, avenues, highways, and superhighways follow a similar design, with feeder systems carrying high volumes of traffic onto major highways and also transferring smaller groups of cars toward the smaller scale local streets. 

Of course, people echo this structure in another, more hidden, way, in the interconnections of individuals in social networks. (Though Favorites lists, like tree skeletons, suggest some of the structure within this particular network.) 

As we travel through our little quadrants of this great online circulatory system, giving thumbs and leaving comments, what we’re doing is spreading a little OS life force.  

Words © 2009 AtHome Pilgrim.

All Rights Reserved.