Talk:Buttress root

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[edit] What is missing here...

What is missing here is that buttress roots are under tension, not compression forces. If one saws into a buttress root, for example, as is often done by Amazonian caboclos (river dwellers) in order to obtain wood for a canoe paddle, the buttress root opens. The often-cited analogy with a baroque-style cathedral's flying buttress is misleading, and a better analogy would be with the steel cables that attach to a tower and act as guidewires. Why can I not find a citation to this simple fact so that it can be included in the article? --Wloveral (talk) 02:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)