What’s better this fall than taking leisurely family walks to grab some fresh air and enjoy the stimulation of the outdoors? Making crafts with bark can be a fun family activity. (Courtesy of Donna ...

Why do trees have bark? Julien, age 6, Melbourne. This is a great question, Julien. We are so familiar with bark on trees, that most of us just take it for granted. But bark is one of the most complex ...

The seasons are changing from fall to winter, and one of the major changes to the environment is that the deciduous trees have lost their leaves. Evergreen trees may still have green needles, but all ...

Mary Jo DiLonardo has worked in print, online, and broadcast journalism for 25 years and covers nature, health, science, and animals. Young trees sometimes have smooth bark that's unbroken by ridges.

In this excerpt from her new book Tree Notes: A Year in the Company of Trees, National Geographic Explorer Nalini M. Nadkarni reveals how tiny “windows” in the bark of trees help them respire. What’s ...

The bark of a single tree can be home to trillions of bacteria, and these microbes may have an important but neglected role in controlling greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere. The total surface ...

A new study has revealed that bark microbes feed off harmful greenhouse gases. The microbes studied eliminated different gases, depending on whether they lived in wetland, mangrove, or upland forests.