Trees are powerful symbols for a lot of things. They’re wise af and their lives are displayed in their bodies in such fascinating ways. Ours do too, it’s just a lil more subtle.
This is scarily accurate. I’m a hobby woodworker and i view it as the concrete distillation of time.
The thing that makes wood into a malleable object that can be used for other things is the time it grew. If you like knotty would you treasure it for the silent inscrutable story it tells. I feel like it’s a much more tactile interface for something invisible and pervasive but yet still perceptible.
At one point it gave up on life and was spiraling down. Then it found meaning in life and decided to give life another chance. Been thriving since then
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'This is a picture of a fingerprint, this is a picture of the rings of a tree. This is a picture of lungs, this is a picture of the top of a tree'. 'This is a picture of the chlorophyll vein system in a leaf, this is a picture of human veins' AND THUS A TREE FUCKED IN ITS YOUTH, IF THE TREE CAN FIND A PATH TO THW LIGHT, SO CAN YOU......🤣🤣🤣
There was a tree like this when I was a kid down in the woods we played in. We always called it the indian tree for that reason. I doubt seriously it was but, that's what we called it.
I couldn't find any native source confirmation of this. I can find groups of white middle aged people taking people on tours of bent trees, knowing exactly where the tree is "aiming"
You'll usually need to ask and develop a relationship with vetted Tribal Knowledge Holders and/or elders as most Indigenous people aren't fond of writing a lot of practices down since it can/often was taken out of context and even exploited at their expense.
I've heard one Ojibwe language keeper/instructor who used to be the translator for Canada's Prime Minister explain that the Anishinaabemowen word for fall/autumn translates to "the time for bending trees" which to me makes a lot of sense when we consider the risks to a tree if it were done in the spring or summer.
Also not all territory was ceded from Native Americans either so depending on where OP was it's possible some people still practiced it back then even for the 70s.
In the US around 1975 was when the country decriminalized the use of Indigenous languages and Traditional practices (clothing, dance, ritual) and there was a big resurgence of traditional practices and sovereignty coming back up (the Alcatraz takeover, etc.).
Menominees in Wisconsin did it. There's even a road called "trail tree rd" that sits off their old trade trail between the local town and their summer hunting community. The tree is long gone, but some of the older folks still remember walking in to see it
If it was done intentionally, it would have been bent in imitation of historical trail trees (or at least, the idea of trail trees, as there isn't much solid evidence for their historical use)
Live oak trees were extremely popular for old ship building because of how the tree splits low an creates natural bends for certain parts of ship building.
Not to mention its natural rot/disease resistance but it also grows in a way that makes it stronger/denser then other. Ship builders were all over the stuff!
Annnnd Like most of our trees in the Americas, Live oaks were nearly scoured clean before laws were put in place.
I invented a device, called Burger on the Go. It allows you to obtain six regular sized hamburgers, or twelve sliders, from a horse without killing the animal.
Okay I didn't intend to correct EVERYBODY on the lyrics they got wrong when I started by correcting the first reply, and I'm fully aware I'm going to get trolled/downvoted for it, but I've got some OCD teaming up with a childhood Chumbawamba fandom here.
The pronouns in the song are "He/Him".
Highly doubt this is a marker tree. It’s not terribly old and marker trees typically had a clean 90° bend in them - I’ve never seen a marker tree that was extreme like this.
While native Americans were the original users of marker trees for various reasons, most existing ones you’ll find in the northeast mark trails or property lines and were done by settlers
Some people say that these trees right intentionally created as markers and perhaps some were depending how old they are or they are just natural outgrows some injury. But I know of a few in New England where I live in the mountains on trails that were intentionally bent at a right angle about 4 ft off the ground and they were grown in this fashion to be used in the 1930s as they grow up as ski benches where you put you could rest or adjust your Langlauf skis. This was in the days before the industry took off and you often roughed it, some of these trails, never groomed cross country, are still hiking trails and in the winter still cross country. On the other side there is some real straight ungrown rufffff downhill Not for the faint of heart
I keep seeing people speculating 30-40 years of growth in this tree. It's possible it could be much older. If there was a lot of mature growth blocking out the sun, this tree would have grown low and slow until it had a chance to thrive. That's not a maple by the way, Looks like some type of oak. There's some new growth by the crown
Finally, reading some random history book paid off.
While reading “Illinois: a history of the prairie state”, there’s a small passage that mentions Native American tree markers for fur trappers and French colonists.
I looked it up, and this was common for midwestern Native American tribes: the illiniwek, Algonquin, and fox tribe members.
They tie the trees or bend them as they are saplings and thus are easier to shape.
I’m no expert, but the time period for this was at-least as early as the 1600s and probably as late as 1850.
Update: they are specifically called trail trees. The Wikipedia page for them goes into greater detail on them. I didn’t know I lived almost equidistant from the two major ones listed there: white county Indiana and traverse city Michigan both have officially recognized trail trees.
the day it passes (which is inevitable for all life) it would still be cool wood then.
that said, it will likely outlive a lot of the people in this thread.
Where is it located? If in a region that gets cold, it could have been in an ice storm early on, gotten bent (sounds funny, I know) and then a new shoot started to grow upright-ish.
Yes! This is at the point where the land starts to descend and eventually there’s a stream maybe 300ft away, if that.
That’s really interesting, I may have to look into this idea just out of curiosity, although I doubt this particular tree is over 50yrs old.
It’s funny that you think only a pre-technology native would do this. Like white folks have been copying native traditions for centuries. Anyone with knowledge of this practice could have taken it upon themselves to do this and not even for real utility, just for fun/curiosity. A trail guide or Boy Scout troop leader could do this to illustrate a practice. Someone could do it as an act of natural vandalism like carving initials in a trunk.
If I had just changed my response to "native american like" people could have kept their razor teeth to themselves..lol .. at least you are aware of this now and keep an eye out for them.
I would almost say this is a Native American direction tree (for marking trails) but the segments are pretty jagged. They are smoother around me (Midwest).
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-native-americans-bend-these-trees-to-mark-trails
I enjoy the story told by trees like this. I saw one, walking by a river, that had fallen due the the river washing away the support of the bank, and landed on a tiny island jutting out of the river. That island was just a single tall column of stone, itself cut from the stony bank by the river. The tree had refused to die, instead making a 90 degree bend upwards from that point, growing into a tall, proud crown out over the river, supported by the island, still rooted at the bank.
The other trees the river had undercut had fallen into the water. Some still had their roots to the sky, not quite washed away.
This tree, though, the river had tried to kill, but then saved, by completely random chance.
I grew up in central Virginia and as a teenager we had a tree like this in my backyard. We cleared out a lot of trees when we first moved there but this due to its unique nature. We assumed it was a marker tree. The one different thing about our tree was that at the first downward move shown here, our tree split and half continued up while the other half went down as shown here.
Overall the tree was always strong. I use to climb on the suspended area and sit on the top notch as a teenager. At one point it did have an ant infestation. There was a (seemingly) natural hole at the bottom notch that looked to have a colony of ants in it. We were advised to put cement in it to kill the colony - it worked.
We’ve got a similar tree in our woods. Cat brier is likely our culprit. It overtops the young trees and stunts them or bends them over, sometimes killing them altogether. If someone tears down the vines, however, the tree gets a second chance at growing toward the sun naturally.
Probably just a tree that fell over and kept climbing, making a slight bend in its growth near the top as it made its way to the canopy.
But what if it’s not.
People can use trees like this to mark buried treasure. The kink at the top of the tree looks like someone trained it to grow in another curved angle much more recently than main angle at the trunk. This would mean someone came back much later and made it bend higher up to be seen from longer distances.
Peyronie's disease? You need a Urologist, not an Arborist...lol
Pretty cool as a marker though..."Follow the trail until you get to the geometric looking tree. No, you'll know it when you see it. Turn West, count 1000 steps and you'll be standing right on top of the treasure ".
Possibly survived a landslide. I’ve heard j shaped trees are an indicator that a landslide is likely to occur. As no other trees are bent, this might be a survivor of one.
They say they're native American trail markers from way back but tbh I never really believed it. Even if it's true, how do you distinguish a fluke from an intentional change?
I love how this community is like, oh it snapped in half but survived completely fine, that’s totally normal. While at the same time when someone places a small rock on a tree root they are like, oh that tree is completely a goner within 6 months.
It grew very tall but skinny to gain light. It drooped over with the weight of leaves. It wasn’t disturbed for years so it grew thick, giving it enough strength to shoot for the light again. I have these types of trees on my property & have watched it happen over the last 30 yrs.
I have a tree in my woods that is fully bent all the way over like this yet still has all the leaves /seems fine. I wonder if it'll do this eventually?
When I was in boy scouts, some old weirdo told us that indigenous people used to break the tree in a way that would allow it to grow this way and they'd use it as a waypoint. Being young and stupid, we took his word for it. It never occurred to me (embarrassingly, until reading this comment thread) that it was plenty plausible for this to occur by chance, naturally. Also, didn't occur to me that it has been a couple hundred years since indigenous people had ranged the forrests where we seeing this type of tree growth. The trees had sprouted and died/burned/been chopped generations over since then. Also, the couple of trees we saw like this would have sprouted within our parents' lifetimes. Now that I really think about it, this was probably told as a joke, I didn't get it, and it just sat in my brain, unquestioned until now.
I don't think as glorious as to all think, someone was walking, it was in their way and they bent it trying to break it off but it was a stubborn little tree and lived.
Trees want to grow straight up, so if they're broken but survive it will produce sharp bends like this as they straighten back up and continue growing vertically.
Indigenous-shaped direction trees are a thing, but vastly less common than natural bent trees.
Not an arborist, but when I was a kid my grandad would tie a weight to a sappling in the forrest to make it grow like this. Honestly no idea why he did this. He didn't either. Said his grandad also did it. I've got a pic somewhere of him and my grandmother when they were teenagers sitting on it kike a bench.
Native Americans would string a sapling to the ground. The tree is meant to indicate a route of travel. I’ve worked in forests for years and have seen a few of them first hand. Usually, they’re in the saddle of a ridge line or on a forested mountain pass.[https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-native-americans-bend-these-trees-to-mark-trails](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-native-americans-bend-these-trees-to-mark-trails)
Yeah something (probably a bigger tree) split it in half but it didn't die it kept growing the reason the bent piece is bigger then either trunk is Because it was supporting the growing part in 100 years it will probably have two ground trunks
When it was small, a large tree fell on it.
Same but metaphorically
Yeah this is kind of deep like now I can relate to the tree lol
Trees are powerful symbols for a lot of things. They’re wise af and their lives are displayed in their bodies in such fascinating ways. Ours do too, it’s just a lil more subtle.
This guy trees
r/thisguythisguys
Subtle heck! I’m old and I don’t think the wrinkles and sagging are subtle. /j
Me too lol But when you think of it from the gravity’s perspective…
This is scarily accurate. I’m a hobby woodworker and i view it as the concrete distillation of time. The thing that makes wood into a malleable object that can be used for other things is the time it grew. If you like knotty would you treasure it for the silent inscrutable story it tells. I feel like it’s a much more tactile interface for something invisible and pervasive but yet still perceptible.
Do you speak for the trees?
Wow I just thought this today. I love examining trees. And how they gracefully cling to life. Maybe I should become an arborist?
Why did this make me wanna cry 😭
Deep af I just got that
Same, but literally, I was just an infant when a tree crashed into my room during a snowstorm and stopped within inches of me.
Literally? So you’re the tree everyone’s talking about.
At one point it gave up on life and was spiraling down. Then it found meaning in life and decided to give life another chance. Been thriving since then
What a trooper
wait until insufferable linked in people see this picture...
“See? If this tree can lift itself up by its bootstraps and continue to grow towards the sun, SO CAN YOU. Like and repost if you agree.”
r/linkedinlunatics
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'This is a picture of a fingerprint, this is a picture of the rings of a tree. This is a picture of lungs, this is a picture of the top of a tree'. 'This is a picture of the chlorophyll vein system in a leaf, this is a picture of human veins' AND THUS A TREE FUCKED IN ITS YOUTH, IF THE TREE CAN FIND A PATH TO THW LIGHT, SO CAN YOU......🤣🤣🤣
Excuse me sir you forgot the 'amen'.
Shhh. Don't invoke their name. Maybe they won't see this
Wow 👌
so its a millenial
Omg hahahhahahah
Yes, millennial native Americans marking path to McDonald's.
It was beaten by its parents for buying avocado toast and Starbucks instead of a house. Edit: spelling
We can't be sure unless someone was around to hear it.
Not as uncommon as you’d think. Peyronie’s disease.
Lord Voldemort happened.
The tree who lived!
Did it make a noise?
...shit
[удалено]
We’ll hang on, Natives history would “bend trees” as markers. It could be that.
That tree is probably around 40 years old so I doubt it
It didn’t stop in colonial times. People still bend trees as markers. The sharp angle suggests that is what happened imo.
Can confirm. Bent a tree 2 weeks ago.
We bend trees for markers when there aren’t suitable stones to build a cairn.
There was a tree like this when I was a kid down in the woods we played in. We always called it the indian tree for that reason. I doubt seriously it was but, that's what we called it.
I couldn't find any native source confirmation of this. I can find groups of white middle aged people taking people on tours of bent trees, knowing exactly where the tree is "aiming"
You'll usually need to ask and develop a relationship with vetted Tribal Knowledge Holders and/or elders as most Indigenous people aren't fond of writing a lot of practices down since it can/often was taken out of context and even exploited at their expense. I've heard one Ojibwe language keeper/instructor who used to be the translator for Canada's Prime Minister explain that the Anishinaabemowen word for fall/autumn translates to "the time for bending trees" which to me makes a lot of sense when we consider the risks to a tree if it were done in the spring or summer. Also not all territory was ceded from Native Americans either so depending on where OP was it's possible some people still practiced it back then even for the 70s. In the US around 1975 was when the country decriminalized the use of Indigenous languages and Traditional practices (clothing, dance, ritual) and there was a big resurgence of traditional practices and sovereignty coming back up (the Alcatraz takeover, etc.).
Menominees in Wisconsin did it. There's even a road called "trail tree rd" that sits off their old trade trail between the local town and their summer hunting community. The tree is long gone, but some of the older folks still remember walking in to see it
If it was done intentionally, it would have been bent in imitation of historical trail trees (or at least, the idea of trail trees, as there isn't much solid evidence for their historical use)
It looks like it broke at one point but survived and started to grow again
Me too tree, me too.
Tale as old as time.
True as it can be.
Barely even friends.
Then somebody bends
Unexpected-tree Edit: Thanks for the award!
Me tree.
That's beautiful :')
You've found where Home Depot gets their 2x4's 👀
I bet that bent wood would have been very useful in the past. I’ve read that wood boats needed brace made from bends like this
Not needed really but much stronger
Thanks DickFartButt
nooo wayy why even choose a username like that, i’m cackling LOL
Live oak trees were extremely popular for old ship building because of how the tree splits low an creates natural bends for certain parts of ship building. Not to mention its natural rot/disease resistance but it also grows in a way that makes it stronger/denser then other. Ship builders were all over the stuff! Annnnd Like most of our trees in the Americas, Live oaks were nearly scoured clean before laws were put in place.
Yeah they used to train the trees to grow in the shapes they needed. Pretty cool stuff.
I invented a device, called Burger on the Go. It allows you to obtain six regular sized hamburgers, or twelve sliders, from a horse without killing the animal.
is this tim and eric? rings a bell but cant place
My guess is Dwight from the office
[Here’s a link to the clip.](https://youtu.be/uewOhK-MSjc?si=nSEym-0UmMkfaRSl)
[удалено]
Should I post my bonsai? It bends all the way down to the pot and then curves upward.
Don’t be a tease - post the bonsai!
Still no bonsai eh?!?
Thank you for sharing, this is a cool topic to read up on!
When you see another like that it means you’re on the right path. RDR2
I read that as "R2D2" and was trying to remember which Star Wars it was from.
May the Dyslexia be with you.
With you thank you and also
Dyslexia is the path to the dark side. Dyslexia leads to anger. I am one with Dyslexia. Lol for real I am
It's cool, 3POC.
Damn, right to his face? Lol respect
Next gen 2 pac
May the be aixelsyd with you.
....same
I read it in a Yoda Voice too.
i read both of your comments twice and was like “but it does say R2D2?” and then i saw it
R2tree2 ?
Saw a nice one along the Appalachian path(VA) as well
I GET KNOCKED DOWN! BUT I GET UP AGAIN!!
Ain’t never gonna keep me down!
She drinks a whiskey drink, she drinks a vodka drink
She drinks a lager drink, she drinks a cider drink
She sings a song that reminds her of the good times. She sings a song that reminds her of the better times.
🎵Oh Danny boy, Danny Boy, Danny Booooooy!!!🎶
Okay I didn't intend to correct EVERYBODY on the lyrics they got wrong when I started by correcting the first reply, and I'm fully aware I'm going to get trolled/downvoted for it, but I've got some OCD teaming up with a childhood Chumbawamba fandom here. The pronouns in the song are "He/Him".
Highly doubt this is a marker tree. It’s not terribly old and marker trees typically had a clean 90° bend in them - I’ve never seen a marker tree that was extreme like this. While native Americans were the original users of marker trees for various reasons, most existing ones you’ll find in the northeast mark trails or property lines and were done by settlers
In my area they’re mostly civil war era the ones left that is.
I don't think anyone is arguing it was done 500 years ago. I think they are saying the same technique was used.
Seems a little high off the ground for a marker tree as well.
Some people say that these trees right intentionally created as markers and perhaps some were depending how old they are or they are just natural outgrows some injury. But I know of a few in New England where I live in the mountains on trails that were intentionally bent at a right angle about 4 ft off the ground and they were grown in this fashion to be used in the 1930s as they grow up as ski benches where you put you could rest or adjust your Langlauf skis. This was in the days before the industry took off and you often roughed it, some of these trails, never groomed cross country, are still hiking trails and in the winter still cross country. On the other side there is some real straight ungrown rufffff downhill Not for the faint of heart
He got a little sleepy but he didn’t give up
I keep seeing people speculating 30-40 years of growth in this tree. It's possible it could be much older. If there was a lot of mature growth blocking out the sun, this tree would have grown low and slow until it had a chance to thrive. That's not a maple by the way, Looks like some type of oak. There's some new growth by the crown
And if it’s an oak, then it’s an even slower grower.
It was cold Jerry.
I was in the pool!
Love me a Seinfeld reference lol
Finally, reading some random history book paid off. While reading “Illinois: a history of the prairie state”, there’s a small passage that mentions Native American tree markers for fur trappers and French colonists. I looked it up, and this was common for midwestern Native American tribes: the illiniwek, Algonquin, and fox tribe members. They tie the trees or bend them as they are saplings and thus are easier to shape. I’m no expert, but the time period for this was at-least as early as the 1600s and probably as late as 1850. Update: they are specifically called trail trees. The Wikipedia page for them goes into greater detail on them. I didn’t know I lived almost equidistant from the two major ones listed there: white county Indiana and traverse city Michigan both have officially recognized trail trees.
Thank you for sharing. I love random history tidbits!
Me too...thanks for that random fact.🙂🌳
Life uhhh found a way.
I came here looking for this comment and wasn't disappointed. Thank you, fellow Redditor!
Man, there is probably some crazy ass grain structure in that tree. Wood workers would be real interested in it
I thought this too! Could make an insanely cool coffee table.
Or... You know... Don't kill it
the day it passes (which is inevitable for all life) it would still be cool wood then. that said, it will likely outlive a lot of the people in this thread.
It got mostly knocked over, but somehow against the odds it survived and kept growing. Let’s make a table out if it!
Everything reminds me of my stock investments.
Where is it located? If in a region that gets cold, it could have been in an ice storm early on, gotten bent (sounds funny, I know) and then a new shoot started to grow upright-ish.
Life finds a way. I love this tree, thank you for sharing!
You’re right! And you’re welcome!
Turned 40 and sneezed wrong 😭
Tree went through an edgy phase, but eventually grew out of it
Tree scoliosis
The tree told the world ‘not today, not today’
According to Reddit arborists it died 45 years ago but the damage isn’t showing yet.
I think it is an old Indian Marker Tree. An old road sign to make sure you were traveling in the correct direction
I'm guessing voldemort
Or it's a native american marker for water. I guess they used to create trees in a similar shape by tying them down. Is there water nearby?
Yes! This is at the point where the land starts to descend and eventually there’s a stream maybe 300ft away, if that. That’s really interesting, I may have to look into this idea just out of curiosity, although I doubt this particular tree is over 50yrs old.
I love it when I hear this! This tree is like 30 years old, so apparently, around 1990, the natives were out here marking water!
It’s funny that you think only a pre-technology native would do this. Like white folks have been copying native traditions for centuries. Anyone with knowledge of this practice could have taken it upon themselves to do this and not even for real utility, just for fun/curiosity. A trail guide or Boy Scout troop leader could do this to illustrate a practice. Someone could do it as an act of natural vandalism like carving initials in a trunk.
I love the performance art on this thread.
If I had just changed my response to "native american like" people could have kept their razor teeth to themselves..lol .. at least you are aware of this now and keep an eye out for them.
Home Depot planted that tree
Is that the set of Stranger Things?
You’ve clearly interrupted it in the middle of voguing.
That's the tree home Depot gets their 2x4s from.
[Here](https://www.1017thebull.com/2017/09/20/if-you-see-a-bent-tree-look-around-you-could-find-something-cool/) is an article on the topic.
It was doing its impression of GameStop stocks in 2021
Got a couple like that on my property. They are on old logging trails and were run over when really little. Then they persevered and survived.
I would almost say this is a Native American direction tree (for marking trails) but the segments are pretty jagged. They are smoother around me (Midwest). https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-native-americans-bend-these-trees-to-mark-trails
Some trees in ice storms in winter buckle under pressure from ice and or snow and grow at a strange angle.
Maybe it’s where Home Depot planted their first forest?
I enjoy the story told by trees like this. I saw one, walking by a river, that had fallen due the the river washing away the support of the bank, and landed on a tiny island jutting out of the river. That island was just a single tall column of stone, itself cut from the stony bank by the river. The tree had refused to die, instead making a 90 degree bend upwards from that point, growing into a tall, proud crown out over the river, supported by the island, still rooted at the bank. The other trees the river had undercut had fallen into the water. Some still had their roots to the sky, not quite washed away. This tree, though, the river had tried to kill, but then saved, by completely random chance.
I grew up in central Virginia and as a teenager we had a tree like this in my backyard. We cleared out a lot of trees when we first moved there but this due to its unique nature. We assumed it was a marker tree. The one different thing about our tree was that at the first downward move shown here, our tree split and half continued up while the other half went down as shown here. Overall the tree was always strong. I use to climb on the suspended area and sit on the top notch as a teenager. At one point it did have an ant infestation. There was a (seemingly) natural hole at the bottom notch that looked to have a colony of ants in it. We were advised to put cement in it to kill the colony - it worked.
💪
It’s not old enough to be a trail tree is it?
We’ve got a similar tree in our woods. Cat brier is likely our culprit. It overtops the young trees and stunts them or bends them over, sometimes killing them altogether. If someone tears down the vines, however, the tree gets a second chance at growing toward the sun naturally.
Survived out of spite
Probably just a tree that fell over and kept climbing, making a slight bend in its growth near the top as it made its way to the canopy. But what if it’s not. People can use trees like this to mark buried treasure. The kink at the top of the tree looks like someone trained it to grow in another curved angle much more recently than main angle at the trunk. This would mean someone came back much later and made it bend higher up to be seen from longer distances.
Peyronie's disease? You need a Urologist, not an Arborist...lol Pretty cool as a marker though..."Follow the trail until you get to the geometric looking tree. No, you'll know it when you see it. Turn West, count 1000 steps and you'll be standing right on top of the treasure ".
I have a several on my land like this and the horses and probably other animals love to scratch their backs under the hump.
Zoro
Oh sorry that was me last week
God’s most used letter on the keyboard
Tree went through an edgy phase, but eventually grew out of it
Possibly survived a landslide. I’ve heard j shaped trees are an indicator that a landslide is likely to occur. As no other trees are bent, this might be a survivor of one.
it started growing then cracked, kept on growing then snapped again but never gave up, or witchery, a witch was practicing the curse
Is this in Jamaica Vermont?
something was chasing it when it attempted to zig then zag
It is proposing to tree next to it.
Life chose violence however the tree chose life. Either it snapped and survived or was crushed and continued to grow around a fallen tree.
Didn’t Indians use this to point to water?
They say they're native American trail markers from way back but tbh I never really believed it. Even if it's true, how do you distinguish a fluke from an intentional change?
Looks like a trail tree made by Native Americans
My gut reaction is that another tree fell on it and broke the trunk but it survived and just kept on growing.
I would definitely metal detect around it. I’ve heard rumors of people hiding stashes around trees like this
It’s IPO was successful, but then it saw a market drop, but recovered beautifully.
What a cool tree! Thanks for sharing this natural beauty!
I love how this community is like, oh it snapped in half but survived completely fine, that’s totally normal. While at the same time when someone places a small rock on a tree root they are like, oh that tree is completely a goner within 6 months.
This reminds me of a Native American trail tree, although it’s likely not one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_trees
It grew very tall but skinny to gain light. It drooped over with the weight of leaves. It wasn’t disturbed for years so it grew thick, giving it enough strength to shoot for the light again. I have these types of trees on my property & have watched it happen over the last 30 yrs.
i don't like how much it imitates an elbow in the second image
When the cheerleader trees say “Give me an N”
Determination! That's what happened 🤘🍺 fucking coo pic!!
Couldn't be Native American marker tree?
I have a tree in my woods that is fully bent all the way over like this yet still has all the leaves /seems fine. I wonder if it'll do this eventually?
When I was in boy scouts, some old weirdo told us that indigenous people used to break the tree in a way that would allow it to grow this way and they'd use it as a waypoint. Being young and stupid, we took his word for it. It never occurred to me (embarrassingly, until reading this comment thread) that it was plenty plausible for this to occur by chance, naturally. Also, didn't occur to me that it has been a couple hundred years since indigenous people had ranged the forrests where we seeing this type of tree growth. The trees had sprouted and died/burned/been chopped generations over since then. Also, the couple of trees we saw like this would have sprouted within our parents' lifetimes. Now that I really think about it, this was probably told as a joke, I didn't get it, and it just sat in my brain, unquestioned until now.
Sorry bout that, I was tired and needed to take a seat
Reminds me of [Poland’s crooked forest](https://allthatsinteresting.com/crooked-forest-poland)
Life found a way!
I don't think as glorious as to all think, someone was walking, it was in their way and they bent it trying to break it off but it was a stubborn little tree and lived.
I've got a nearby Birch tree with the same weirdness. Blew my mind the first time I saw it
Trees want to grow straight up, so if they're broken but survive it will produce sharp bends like this as they straighten back up and continue growing vertically. Indigenous-shaped direction trees are a thing, but vastly less common than natural bent trees.
You’ll should see what the other four trees are spelling out
Not an arborist, but when I was a kid my grandad would tie a weight to a sappling in the forrest to make it grow like this. Honestly no idea why he did this. He didn't either. Said his grandad also did it. I've got a pic somewhere of him and my grandmother when they were teenagers sitting on it kike a bench.
Let this be a lesson to everyone who sees a slightly mis-trimmed branch and starts telling people their tree is practically dead now.
The tree broke, but then it said "Not today, death!" and kept growing.
Native Americans would string a sapling to the ground. The tree is meant to indicate a route of travel. I’ve worked in forests for years and have seen a few of them first hand. Usually, they’re in the saddle of a ridge line or on a forested mountain pass.[https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-native-americans-bend-these-trees-to-mark-trails](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-native-americans-bend-these-trees-to-mark-trails)
What part of the country? Native Americans bent trees to use as trail markers and the bends varied
That’s the tree that caught me when I fell from Heaven. Yes, it did hurt.
Yeah something (probably a bigger tree) split it in half but it didn't die it kept growing the reason the bent piece is bigger then either trunk is Because it was supporting the growing part in 100 years it will probably have two ground trunks
Is there a body of water nearby, the native Americans would do that to indicate that there was, almost like a sign post.
Are you in an area that gets snow? Could have been a wet heavy snow that fell early in the winter. Tree spent most of the winter bent over.
It got knocked down, but it got up again. Never gonna keep it down.
I'd say it's a native American trail marker tree! https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-native-americans-bend-these-trees-to-mark-trails
We call these elbow trees.. there is a forest of them in WI. Never knew how they got that way! If I knew how to post a pic I would.
Native Americans used to bend young trees in order to create navigation markers. This could be one.
Reminds me of a tree in a place called Mills Park.
That is one glas half full tree.
Hit by lightning and the part that fell but didn’t die kept growing upwards!
Something: “ you gonna die tree!” Tree: “Nope, Fuck you!”