Page 57 - (DK) I Can’t Believe It! 2

STRANGE BUT TRUE! 55

FAST FACTS
The outer and inner bark
protect the cambrium
from animals, fungi, and
the weather.
Outer bark
Inner bark
A layer under
the bark called
the cambrium
has living cells
that make the
tree grow.
A tree can grow slowly around
an object placed on, in, or close
by it. The tree cannot move away,
so it has to stop growing, grow
away, or grow around the object
when its trunk increases in size.
It takes decades for an object
to be truly stuck.

The bicycle was once
red, but it has turned
to rusty ruins while
lodged in the trunk
of this fir tree.

Local author
Berkeley
Breathed wrote
a children’s book
about the bicycle
mystery. The riddle of the bicycle up a
tree is legendary in Vashon Island,
Washington. One story goes that a
boy tied his bike to the tree before
going to war in 1914, while town
sheriff Don Puz is sure he left the
bike behind in the 1950s. Sceptics
insist it is nothing more than a hoax.

US_054-055_309600_Bike_in_a_tree.indd 55 19/12/17 12:56 pm