Things are getting a bit soggy here in Nth Central Victoria. We're camped high & dry in box/ironbark habitat. Nearby is a low lying area with river redgum. Three days ago there was an elderly gentleman & his wife camped down there. Luckily for them, they left because overnight it flooded & a huge tree fell right where they had been camped. At 6am this morning we heard what sounded like someone breaking kindling up & then down it came with a ground shaking thump bringing another tree with it.
No tap roots on gum trees hence incidence of falling over.
That's not quite correct.
Gums are eucalypts which is a very large family of plants, and whilst there are shallow rooting varieties, most large gums have tap roots.
In fact the 5 main big gums of Western Australia, Jarrah, Marri, Karri, Tuart and Tingle, all have tap roots and some are massive, reaching down 60 feet or more.
Tap roots of these tress can be seen in some of the limestone caves in WA well underground.
Often though, tap roots do not grow directly downwards due to obstructions or how the tree was formed, so may travel outwards for a distance before heading downwards. I have recently had reason to drop a large Marri on my property and extract the stump, and the tap root on that did this as it was sitting on some A grade bauxite.
