The Octopus Tree
With all their gnarly-ness, twisty branches and intricate bark, Live Oaks are one of the most interesting and plentiful of the trees in our neighborhood on the South Carolina coast. Two very old ones, home to many birds and squirrels, fill my view as I drink my tea in the sunroom every morning.
And on one of the trails we frequent along the ocean is a Live Oak so interesting and loved, it has a name.
The Octopus Tree is a living sculpture. The sculptor — a hurricane!
Everything in the photo above is ONE tree.
As you can see, you hike through thick forest all around and suddenly the trail opens up and goes right through this tangle of tree, the tentacles of the octopus.
Here’s how it happens.
Children love to chase each other in and out and over the branches of the Octopus Tree. I confess I usually call a rest here and use one for a seat with a backrest. It’s easy to close one’s eyes and summon up Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, a party of cavorting tree fairies.
At the center back, slightly left, of the photo you can see the trail continuing on, reentering the thick forest of pine, wax myrtle, and other shrubs.
Live oaks live for several hundred years and grow tremendous trunk girths. They shed and grow new leaves year around, hence their name. Their wood is very strong and until the 1860s, the US Navy used it to build its warships.
Never seen anything like that. I've seen very large live oaks in Louisiana at a former plantation we visited once.
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty cool and beautiful!
ReplyDeleteWow that is one interesting tree!
ReplyDeleteThat is amazing how that's done by nature.
ReplyDeleteIt is an interesting tree to be sure and one that I would look forward to seeing on my walks if I lived down there. Nature really is a fine sculptor it seems. Live Oaks in general are very lovely and I have always taken great delight in them, and in the wildlife they provide refuge for.
ReplyDeleteAmazing tree! Thanks for the horticulture lesson. It seems to be the opposite of a banyan tree, where the extra strands hand down and then attach to the ground. One of the largest banyans is in Lahaina, Maui in Hawaii. Linda in Kansas
ReplyDeleteSimilar trees are here on the Central Coast.
ReplyDeleteBesides the type of tree but have the "First Nations" ie; Australian Aboriginal name
and what they mean and what they were used for. If you are able to access the Australian movie - "Twelve / Ten (??) Canoes" all in the native vernacular of Arnhem Land - up in the Qld / Northern Territory region where there are as from Margarete Davis latest report in her blog now over 100,00 salt water crocodiles in the rivers!!!
The crocodiles don't like humans in their domain - ha ha. Silly people get eaten for entree!!!!
Cheers
Colin
What an amazing tree. It would be fun to be a kid a climb in it.it is a nice sculpture now.
ReplyDeletegreat trees
ReplyDeleteBeautiful blog
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