When the bark of a tree is removed in a circular fashion all around near its base, it gradually dries up and dies because:
Answer & explanation
Answer: (b) Roots are starved of energy
The bark ring includes the phloem, which carries food made in the leaves down to the roots. Once the ring is cut all the way round, the roots get no food and run out of energy. The roots then die, and the whole tree follows.
- ✗ (a) Water and minerals rise through the xylem. The xylem lies deeper in the wood, inside the bark, so removing a ring of bark from the surface does not cut it. Water movement continues at first.
- ✓ (b) Phloem moves the products of photosynthesis from the leaves to other parts of the plant, including the roots. Removing a complete ring of bark cuts this supply line. Roots cannot make their own food, so they starve and the tree dies.
- ✗ (c) Soil microbes are not the cause. The tree dies because the food supply to the roots is cut off, whether or not any infection follows.
- ✗ (d) The roots still take up oxygen from the soil air, because the cut is on the stem. What they lack is food (sugars) to respire.
Remember · Xylem carries water upward and lies deep in the wood. Phloem, in the bark, carries food from the leaves to the roots. Ring-barking (girdling) cuts the phloem and starves the roots.
📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 10 Science, Ch 5 (practise this chapter) · Class 10 Science, Ch 5 (practise this chapter)
Sources
- NCERT Class 10 · Science, Chapter 5 “The other, phloem transports products of photosynthesis from the leaves where they are synthesised to other parts of the plant.”
- NCERT Class 10 · Science, Chapter 5 “This transport of soluble products of photosynthesis is called translocation and it occurs in the part of the vascular tissue known as phloem.”
Question: UPSC Civil Services (Preliminary) 2011, General Studies Paper I. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 25 Oct 2026 (how we verify). ·
