This isn’t my Norway Maple. (How did I come on vacation without a picture?) But look how majestic that tree is!

I was looking at the enormous Norway Maple in my backyard the other day, and a question occurred.  How deep are its roots?  Living as we do in the age of Google, I soon found myself reading this fascinating and instructive article on the question of root depth.

Apparently there has been some dispute over the natural root depth of trees.  Back in the 1930s, scientists investigated this question by digging out the root systems of large trees.  The answer that they reached is one you may have seen in textbooks when you were a kid: that the root system of trees is as extensive as the branch system.  Indeed, reports exist of such trees to this day.