A Persistent Rumor Suggests This Tree Can Walk Around, But Is It True? : ScienceAlert

The stories we tell ourselves about the natural world can sometimes stretch far from the truth.

For years, visitors to the rainforests of Central and South America have been told of a tree that slowly ambles around on its stilted roots.

The lore of the so-called walking palm (Socratea exorrhiza) has persisted since at least 1980 when anthropologists John H. Bodley and Foley C. Benson detailed the plant’s unbelievable behavior in a scientific paper.

According to Bodley and Benson, when toppled by falling trees or branches some palms in eastern Peru can “right themselves and “walk” out from…