Mangrove tree West coast Malaysia port dickson Rhizophora sp
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Mangrove trees grow where no tree has grown before They are able to survive inundation by salt water twice a day and in soil which is unstable and poor in oxygen anaerobic They also have to deal with swollen rivers carrying silt during the wet season as well as violent storms that hit the coasts To deal with salt all mangrove trees exclude some salt at the root level and all can tolerate more salt in their tissues than normal plants often in quantities that would kill other plants But some have more effective ultrafiltration at the root level to exclude more salt Any salt that gets through are believed to be stored in old leaves which are later shed These include Bruguiera Sonneratia and Rhizophora A few can tolerate high levels of salt in their tissues and their sap can be up to one tenth as salty as sea water They then secrete the excess salt through special cells on their leaves Root of the matter Mangrove roots not only provide support in unstable soils and to withstand currents and storms but also breathe air To avoid suffocation in the oxygen poor mud mangrove trees snorkel for air They develop aerial or air breathing roots These take in aboveground air All aerial tree roots have on their surface special tiny pores to take in air lenticels Only air can get through the lenticels not water or salts All aerial roots also contain large air spaces aerenchyma These not only transport air but also provide a reservoir of air during high tide when all the aerial roots may be underwater The function of aerial roots are to absorb air or and to provide structural support in the soft mud Roots for absorbing nutrients are tiny and emerge near the muddy surface Aerial roots can take on different forms Avicennia develop shallow cable roots which spread out from the trunk Along these cable roots emerge short pencil like roots left called pneumatophores meaning air carrier in Greek A 3 metre tall Avicennia can have 10 000 pneumatophores Sonneratia also produce pneumatophores bu