Nature, understood in its wide sense, is the territory where every architectural process is developed. It is fundamental to recognize nature’s basic principles, functional logics and to interact with it in a precise way. Develop methodologies that allow us measure and evaluate geographic, social or economic realities, knowing the historic methodologies that had been part of architecture, is another basic step. Different natural elements as: trees, mountains, rivers, waves or clouds, can be analyzed geometrically thanks to fractal geometry development and the digital modelling techniques.
Robinia pseudoacacia is a tree in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States, but has been widely planted and naturalized elsewhere in temperate North America, Europe and Asia and is considered an invasive species in some areas. A less frequently used common name is False Acacia, which is a literal translation of the specific epithet.
DescriptionIt grows to 14–25 m tall, with a trunk up to 0.8 m diameter (exceptionally up to 27 m tall and 1.6 m diameter in very old trees), with thick, deeply furrowed blackish bark. The leaves are 10–25 cm long, pinnate with 9–19 oval leaflets, 2–5 cm long and 1.5–3 cm broad. Each leaf usually has a pair of short thorns at the base, 1–2 mm long or absent on adult crown shoots, up to 2 cm long on vigorous young plants. The intensely fragrant flowers are white, borne in pendulous racemes 8–20 cm long, and are considered edible. The fruit is a legume 5–10 cm long, containing 4–10 seeds.Although similar in general appearance to Honey locust, it lacks that tree's characteristic long branched spines on the trunk, instead having the pairs of short thorns at the base of each leaf; the leaflets are also much broader.
Bark: Dark gray brown tinged with red, deeply furrowed, surface inclined to scale. Branchlets at first coated with white silvery down. This soon disappears and they become pale green, afterward reddish brown. Prickles develop from stipules, are short, somewhat triangular, dilated at base, sharp, dark purple, adhering only to the bark, but persistent. Wood: Pale yellowish brown; heavy, hard, strong, close-grained and very durable in contact with the ground. Sp. gr., 0.7333; weight of cu. ft., 45.70 lbs.
Winter buds: Minute, naked, three or four together, protected in a depression by a scale-like covering lined on the inner surface with a thick coat of tomentum and opening in early spring; when forming are covered by the swollen base of the petiole.
Leaves: Parallel, compound, odd-pinnate, eight to fourteen inches long, with slender hairy petioles, grooved and swollen at the base. Leaflets petiolate, seven to nine, one to two inches long, one-half to three-fourths of an inch broad, emarginate or rounded at apex. They come out of the bud conduplicate, yellow green, covered with silvery down which soon disappears; when full grown are dull dark green above, paler beneath. Feather-veined, midvein prominent. In autumn they turn a clear pale yellow. Stipules linear, downy, membranous at first, ultimately developing into hard woody prickles, straight or slightly curved. Each leaflet has a minute stipel which quickly falls and a short petiole.
Flowers: May, after the leaves. Papilionaceous. Perfect, borne in loose drooping racemes four to five inches long, cream-white, about an inch long, nectar bearing, fragrant. Pedicels slender, half an inch long, dark read or reddish green.
Calyx: Campanulate, givvous, hairy, five-toothed, slightly two-lipped, dark green blotched with red, especially on the upper side teeth valvate in bud.
Corolla: Imperfectly papilionaceous, petals inserted upon a tubular disk; standard white with pale yellow blotch; wings white, oblong-falcate; keel petals incurved, obtuse, united below. Stamens: Ten, inserted, with the petals, diadelphous, nine inferior, united into a tube which is cleft on the upper side, superior one free at the base. Anthers two-celled, cells opening longitudinally.
Pistil: Ovary superior, linear-oblong, stipitate, one-celled; style inflexed, long, slender, bearded; stigma capitate; ovules several, two-ranked.
Fruit: legume two-valved, smooth three to four inches long and half an inch broad, usually four to eight seeded. Ripens late in autumn and hangs on the branches until early spring. Seeds dark orange brown with irregular markings. Cotyledons oval, fleshy.
DISTANCE OF BRANCHES FROM GROUND TO CENTERLINE OF BRANCH
By throwing the stones with the string at each individual branch, we were able to find the exact
height of each branch in the Robinia Pseudoacacia tree.
The idea in the end is to check the measurements that we gathered with both methods and make an average. We think that using two methods and establishing a middle point is good to have a more accurate measurement of the tree.
Four pictures of the tree were taken at a distance of 10m from the center of the trunk. We could only use three of them since one of the views was blocked by the Parc de la Ciutadella perimeter gate. This pictures were inserted in AutoCAD at a scale of 1:1. A grid of 1cm by 1cm was then overlayed in this pictures to get the measurements of the tree.
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