What I have here, is a strange branch that I found while gathering firewood for a campfire. It was found among a large fallen branch that seemed to be the source as it was the same type and age. http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/5935/26849700.png http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/4323/36014991.png As you can see from the pics, it has a circular growth with no beginning or end. Just kind of grew in a loop (9X11). Could this be from some kind of natural grafting? Anyone know what this type of growth is? thanks!
Wow .. i dont know what that is .. sure hope you find out what it is. ..but that is one wild piece of wood .. sure is something ya want to keep .. nice find Marion
Could it be the scar (for lack of a better word) that forms around the area when a large branch falls off? The tree would had to have mostly rotted away to see this type of formation. Boy - I'm just guessing on this one. I know that if a tree is cut down, but its roots have attached/crossed with another live tree it will continue live via the live tree. Maybe it is this type of conection. This is a real teaser! barb
Weird! Definitely something to keep. The wood grain is longitudinal round the ring, so I don't think it can be a knot occlusion ring. No idea how it can have formed! Can you take a photo of the other side?
Well i just looked at were you live ..not sure if you have any Saw Mills around ya ?? or wood workers/cabinet makers anything like that .. they might know .. someone who has been in the wood buisiness for a long time . i would take it on to someone like that and just ask them .. It is just such a neat piece of wood .. good luck Marion
Thanks everyone for your interest! I should've mentioned that it was found at Shivwits which is south of the Gunlock Reservoir in Washington County, Utah. This is the exact spot (near a stream): http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=37.185014,-113.765026&spn=0.002094,0.003449&t=h&z=18 Sure thing.
That's really interesting. First thing that came to mind was a tree root. I searched some images and looks like a possibility.
Good thinking! I can't think of any better possibility. Perhaps from a planted tree that was potbound with a circling root (yep, unlikely in that spot, but it could have washed downstream from the nearest village).
Hello again Sorry for bumping this old thread. I had forgotten about this thing until I found it carefully packed away in my storage closet. Now my curiosity is piqued all over again. What is it? A root?
If I had to take a guess, I'd say likely a root. May have been a tree girdled by it's own root, which means it's food to roots would be cut-off so it would die, decay and break off. I seem smaller versions of that around trees occasionally. Usually not completely encircled. But once in while, roots, like some twigs, can sort of self-graft. It's called inosculation if I recall correct. ....
That has to be it! Thank you M. D. Vaden, for your reply. I googled inosculation and found these cool places: Living Root Bridges A way to live inside your garden see also: this and this Living Lattice Labyrinth The Basket tree
One of the POTD contributors, Life Pilgrim on flickr, has a photo on her photostream showing, I guess you'd call it, a callus around a tree hollow that looks like it could become something like the photo here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/23323881@N06/6093010878/ The same person has also posted a still-attached to the ground avocado root: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23323881@N06/3309118750/ Offroader, thanks for those very cool links. The first one is particularly interesting.
This place has a POTD thread? I used to take photos of flowers and insects with my Canon XT and 60mm macro lens. Man, I miss that thing. Sold it a few months ago. I have yet to show anyone my photos. This seems like the perfect place for that!
Do you see a left sidebar with a photo on it and a Botany Photo of the Day link above that? Click that. Or go here: http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/potd/ and check out the the information links on the left.
