Awkwardness is for Everyone

The mysteries behind crown shyness

First off what is crown shyness? Crown shyness is an phenomenon in where the leaves and branches of one tree don’t touch those of other trees. This includes trees of the same species. According to the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia some of the possible reasons behind this include that for example, if one tree were to get sick with some sort of virus or an infestation of some type of insect or

animal, this type of phenomenon would become some sort of defense mechanism to prevent the spread or contracting of any of these harmful organisms. Another reason scientist speculate is that this phenomenon occurs is that the branches could harm themselves or one of its nearby trees. This could be caused by the branches blowing in the wind and hitting one anther or by one of the trees shading the other and stunting its growth. The final theory is that plants can feel when they are getting to close to one another, they do this by sight. In the book What a Plant Knows, Daniel Chamovitz discusses that plants can see certain types

of light such as bright and dark tones. So when the plant sees that its being shaded by a nearby tree, the plants halts their growing process the prevent them from out shading one another. Unfortunately none of these theory’s have been scientifically proven so their could be many other reasons why the plants would do this, but until then the mystery remains unsolved.

Chamovitz, Daniel. What a Plant Knows: a Field Guide to the Senses. Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.