Anyone can help identify the broad leaf tree show in the picture? I came across it yesterday at Lake Burnaby's Spruce Trail Loop. Its trunk is fallen but twigs flourish well. The roots are twinned with that of a spruce, is this kind of cohabitation a kind of symbiosis?
How big are those leaves? The twigs with the leaves are something I more associate with a common shrub species.
The leaf is about 2 inches long. I show you one more picture, a branch grows from the fallen trunk, so for sure it is not shrub. The other trunk standing upright is the spruce. The upright and the fallen trunk are interwined. I find a lot of articles describing the symbiosis of spruce with mistletoe, but there is almost no citation of symbiosis with other plant.
Nothing symbiotic here, just a shrub that's sprouted from a seed that landed on top of the fallen tree. This happens quite commonly, as young shrub / tree saplings have less competition from weeds to smother them on the trunks of fallen trees - look up 'nurse log'. Mistletoe isn't symbiosis either, that's just straight parasitism - the mistletoe-infected spruce doesn't gain anything from it.
Learnt a new term "nurse log" from you, Michael. Thanks very much. I guess you and Daniel are right after all, it's a common shrub. Thx again.
