Oak and Blackthorn
A strange botanical freak is reported to me from an observer in Bodmin
" While trimming a very overgrown hedge here I came upon an oak tree about 'a foot in diameter and in perfectly sound health. About three feet up a blackthorn about an inch in diameter hag grown clean through the trunk and .out the other side.. It has gone through quite cleanly and like the oak is in perfect health."
Where I have seen this sort of thing happen a branch or twig pressing tight against another has been absorbed by the growing bark and cambium ; but direct penetraney
is not impossible. A mushroom can up-end a heavy stone, a tender growing tip can shatter a tombstone—to quote two
present examples within my own knowledge. We all know the power of the parasite ; and how many plants seem to play the. mistletoe. A very. large locust tree in which I used to fix nuts for the nuthatches became a little nut planta- tion ; and higher up (in the fork of the chief bough) a goose- berry bush flourished as luxuriantly as grass grows. on an old rook's nest. The seed of the common nettle seems to have a surprising fondness for germinating in the bark of fallen trees. I found one day a flourishing crop on an elm trunk at the. edge .of a garden, though the commoner weed at that place was not the English but the. Roman mettle.
W. 13Eacif TuomAs.
Previous page
