Exploding tree

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Some trees can explode when struck by lightning. ^[1] ^[2] The strong electric current is carried mostly by the water-conducting sapwood below the bark, heating it up and boiling the water. The pressure of the steam can make the trunk burst. In Australia, the native eucalyptus trees are also known to explode during bush fires due to the high flammability of vapourised eucalyptus oil produced by the tree naturally. ^[3]^[4]

Fictional tree explosions were the subject of a 2005 April Fools' Day hoax covered by National Public Radio, stating that maple trees in New England had been exploding due to a failure to collect their sap, causing pressure to build from the inside. ^[5]

[edit] Exploding trees in fiction

In Larry Niven's fictional setting of Known Space, an alien race called the Tnuctipun used genetic engineering to create the stage tree, a tree which produces solid rocket fuel. Stage trees spread their seeds only when they are ignited.
The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring, also by Niven, feature enormous inhabited trees in orbit around a neutron star. The tidal force keeps them under strong tension, and if they drift out of the habitable zone of the gas ring, they split in half with explosive force, sacrificing one half of the tree to save the other half.
In the book Brian's Winter by Gary Paulsen the main character believes he is hearing gunshots, and walks toward them, and finds out that sound is made by exploding trees.
In the Super Nintendo video game EarthBound there is an enemy in the Peaceful Rest Valley called the Territorial Oak which explodes when defeated and causes a great deal of damage to party members.
The fictional Tesla trees in Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos series supposedly let off gigantic blasts of lightning in order to secure fertilizer, similar in some ways to an explosion.
In Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", Victor is inspired to pursue a life of science when he observes an oak exploding in a thunderstorm. (literally exploding, leaving the tree in thin ribbons of wood.)
In Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, trees in the northern countries commonly explode by freezing, due to the extreme cold.
In Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth series, wizards and sorceresses use their gift to heat the sap inside trees to boil, until the tree explodes, sending jagged wood fragments in all directions and delivering horrendous wounds to those near it. Seen in Faith of the Fallen and Chainfire.
In David Zindell's Neverness descriptions of "popping noises" in the distance are heard and splinters found in the snow drifts when Mallory Ringess and company are posing as Alolai and travelling to the Devlaki tribe, Describing the explosions of trees due to the extreme colds found on Neverness (the planet)