Do tree's p**p?

Question

I mean do they have any waste products? does it come out the roots? what gives?

I'm not seven years old, I'm quite mature, but it just struck me -- do tree's have waste?-- of course I'm talking all vegetable matter

I know they "exhale" oxygen and some carbon dioxide

Answer 1

Well...if you walk by the Berkeley campus today, you might get p**p thrown down on you by the tree sitters who have been up there eating granola for 9 weeks...with no bedpans or plumbing

Answer 2

No

Answer 3

Plants do eliminate some wastes but instead of eliminating to the exterior like animals do they secrete their metabolic wastes into their nonliving tissues or cavities within the plant. Plant cells have internal sacs called vacuoles that are used for storage including waste storage. So with plants is called secretion rather than excretion for their nongaseous byproducts. The primary plant waste is oxygen and it is released as a gas through leaf stomata and stem lenticels. Beyond this they also secrete a percentage of their total carbohydrate product via their roots into the soil to attract symbiotic soil organisms. This is their root carbohydrate exudate that is extra but not a metabolic waste.

http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/...

http://books.google.com/books?id=kSWV3HJ...

Trees may use the heartwood to sequester some wastes. As a tree matures the sapwood ages and becomes the heartwood. Some include the addition of tannins and metabolic waste materials.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/ci...

http://books.google.com/books?id=DuVxdu6...

"The heartwood contains waste products produced during the metabolism of the tree." from ch 10.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Rm_QUXM...

Some botanists also propose that leaves may be repositories of annual wastes by trees. Plants have found ways of using these toxins to ward off herbivorous pests by depositing secondary metabolites in leaves to make them unpalatable or harmful. They may also secrete them in the soil to prevent other plants from growing nearby.

Allelopathy & secondary metabolites.

http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-onl...

http://books.google.com/books?id=eFQgSjZ...

Waste products are the inert, unusable or toxic end products of the specific metabolism or metabolic paths of the organism.

Answer 4

All living things excrete waste products in some way or another. In the case of plants, they excrete oxygen through their leaves. It's a useless waste product to plants. They don't, however, defecate - that's the preserve of animals with digestive tracts.

Answer 5

Leace a car in summer under a tree, you will se the marks it leaves, I was told some of these "rain" kills competitor plants around. That is the resource some trees  have to survive.

Answer 6

Do you think you'd "p**p" if you ate sunlight all day long?