Tree

Sharks appeared on Earth before Trees. The oldest known shark scale Fossils date to about 450 million years ago in the late Ordovician period, while the first trees only appeared around 385 million years ago in the Devonian. Sharks predate trees by roughly 65 million years.

Every winter, 'snow monsters' up to 5-6 meters tall appear on Japan's Tohoku mountains. Siberian winds carry moisture that becomes supercooled droplets, freezing instantly upon hitting trees and building up over weeks into towering ice formations called juhyo.

The almendro tree in Central American rainforests evolved to attract lightning. 68% more likely to be struck than neighbors, each strike kills an average of 9.2 surrounding trees by electrocution, boosting the almendro's reproduction up to 14-fold.

Metasequoia was known only from fossils over 150 million years old until living specimens were confirmed in China in 1946. Only about 4,000 trees remained at the time, and every metasequoia in the world today descends from them.

A straw can only suck water up about 10 meters. So how do trees over 100m tall move water to the top? The secret is transpiration: as water exits the leaves, molecular cohesion pulls the column up like a chain. Trees use 95% of their water just for this.