Ordinarily, dead bark would be the part of a tree left rotting in the woods after the valuable parts have been harvested. Not so with our mystery tree. The bark gets harvested, and the rest of the tree is left standing!
First, a description of the tree itself. One unusual aspect is that it’s green year-round, yet it’s not a needleleaf type. You’re right, Wondernose; that indicates the tree must inhabit warm climates. It grows most abundantly in Portugal and Spain.
Though our mystery tree lives quite long—up to 400 years—it never grows very tall. At the most it’ll be 60 feet (18 m) high. And how does it start its growth journey? Why, when a small green acorn falls to the ground and sprouts! So yes, our tree is an oak, though its leaves are not as deeply lobed as the oaks we’re familiar with. Because of its evergreen habits, this tree is known as a “live oak.” It’s “alive” all year round, you see.
However, the world has other live oaks. You still haven’t hit upon our riddle’s full answer, Wondernose. That will include the product harvested from the tree.
Once such a live oak is about twenty years old, it’s ready to undergo the first “harvesting.” Bringing long-handled hatchets, workers cut the thick bark into large slabs, starting just below the branches and stripping the trunk right down to the ground. The harvesters must work very carefully. Only the dead part of the bark may be taken. If an accidental cut is made into the living inner bark, that particular tree will never again produce the kind of bark we consider so valuable.
But if done properly, a single tree can be harvested again and again. Not every year, mind you. Every eight to ten years seems to work best for these sturdy little oaks.
The slabs of dead bark must now go through quite a process before they’re ready to manufacture into end-products. Believe it or not, the slabs need to be boiled! Thus they’re softened and can be straightened out. Also, the boiling makes it easier to scrape off the useless, gritty outer layer of the bark.
I can see you’re growing impatient to hear about the actual uses of this bark, Wondernose, so that you can finally solve our riddle. Well, the clean, sorted slabs are wrapped into bundles and loaded onto ships to be sent all over the world. Sorry. You want me to get to the point! Well, a major use for this bark is insulation. For that, it’s ground up and pressed into whatever shapes are needed, including pipe shapes to insulate water pipes.
This product is a good sound-proofer as well. It’s installed in walls and ceilings of apartments so the dwellers needn’t be disturbed by each other’s noises.
But perhaps I’ve left for last the uses you may be most familiar with: bottle stoppers and shoe soles. Yes, yes, Wondernose, our mystery tree is the cork oak!
