that is really cool ....

but i wouldnt spend a lot of time standing under the big tree... that is apparently totally rotten inside ... hope its not hanging over anyones house ...

thx for the pic ...

ken

Looks like it's a willow. The spruce isn't growing from the trunk, it's growing in the decomposed remains of what used to be a trunk. In the conifer forest here seedlings often start in old logs and stumps.

There are species of trees which are pretty much unable to get their start in any manner save growing on a decomposing log or stump. Here in the northwoods environment, yellow birch comes to mind, but there are many more such examples. Next time you hear some fool talking about the "waste" of old logs decaying on the forest floor....

+oM

To illustrate +om's point...

tj

Here fallen wood is also critical to the water supply in the forest, as it absorbs and holds it through the annual summer drought.

Have seen red maples growing out of the small amount of decaying debris between other trees' forking trunks.

Bird-dropped genera such as Hedera, Ilex and Sambucus are of course all likely to be seen in crotches of live trees that apparently have some debris for these to grow in. Perhaps the most surprising I have seen was Robinia.

I've seen Sorbus growing in the crotch of sugar maple, Athyrium (fern) in hole in trunk of same species, and of course, numerous examples of nightshade growing up in tree crotches. But for pure life-growing-on -other-life goodness, at least in my experience, one needs to look at the trunks of cabbage palms in S. Florida, with their numerous openings sporting ferns, sunshine mimosa, philodendrons, uh....really, this is just the start of a list of things which can be seen growing on other things. I'm reasonably sure that as one moves closer to the wet tropics, this phenomenon becomes more and more pronounced. Also saw a slash pine of perhaps 80 ft. height, with a Pothos plant growing luxuriantly right up to where that tree's crown begins. Wonderful stuff.

+oM

Date palms plastered with sword ferns near Orlando.

Yup, that sort of thing. And while perhaps drifting off-topic a bit, is there any crazier sight in nature than a large bald cypress in Corkscrew Swamp with an enormous strangler fig winding and enveloping the tree's stem, then up at the top, bursting upwards higher still, forming a large "tree" crown in its own right.

Oh well, I guess it's obvious-I wish I was still down there!

+oM

Back to Picea...Here's Picea rubens on nurse log of same in GSMNP....Viburnum alnifolium on extreme left.

Johnny

Con, extreme lower right of your photo-looks like a bit of trunk of a birch! I knew white pine, red spruce, and a handful of other "northern" species grow up in those mountains, but I had not thought birch-of any stripe-to be there.

+oM

It's yellow birch/Betula alleghaniensis...65 miles northeast on Mt. Mitchell you'll find Paper birch/B. papyrifera as well.

Johnny

Veddy interesting. Yellow birch be my favorite N. hardwood. Can get truly enormous, at least up in rich, well-drained northern hardwood stands. so large, in fact, that it becomes difficult to ID them from the ground, the lower bark having long ago lost the shiny look of younger stems.

Once my 8000 or so conifers I've planted in the open portions of my land take hold and "capture" the site for forest, as the big guys say, I intend to intersperse some N. hardwoods-yellow birch and beech among them, for sure. Sugar maple will get there on its own, I reckon, my woods having lots of them already.

+oM

Current records for yellow birch include one from Tennessee and one from West Virginia.

Followup: Since it appears the link to the page on yellow birch ("Species Details") doesn't open to that page it will have to be gotten to by following the link that is presented instead and then searching for the species using the search box on the map page that comes up at that point. I got to it originally by using "alleghaniensis".

Here is a link that might be useful: Species Details

This post was edited by bboy on Wed, Jan 14, 15 at 13:01

Yellow birch can seem to start on bare rock too. Here in the high elevations of extreme western MD I examine one:

Excellent, Beng. Really quite a species. In N. Wisconsin, a characteristic site is that of a large YB seeming to stand on "stilts", it having gotten its start on a rotting stump, which later rots away completely, leaving the tree up on its roots in that fashion.

Anyone confirm or deny the notion that YB can hybridize with B. papyrifera? I have on my land numerous of the latter, but down in an area full of springs, there are some birch seeming to show intermediate characteristics between the two species. And both are generally found in the area, to account for the possibility,from that standpoint at least, of this being able to happen.

+oM

At the Asheville Botanical Gardens in Asheville NC they have several nice yellow birch growing at low elevation

Pretty tree

That's surprising, in that YB is not especially fond of heat. Leastways in my conception, a lower-elevation site in N. Carolina sounds HOT to me!

+oM

2200-2300 feet in elevation

So I guess elevation is relative!

Here's a couple of Western Hemlock growing out of a Douglas Fir 'nurse log' down by the woodshed. They also grow out of stumps and most of the old ones around here have a few on them.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/trees/msg0120164410284.html?6
Mike

Mike, that log has a dog growing out of it too. Or is that a small bear?

+oM

+om, that's a cat. My wife named her Ali Cat. Since I like landscape design I call her Alee'....of course.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the nesting Flamingo. She's old and faded, but still has nesting instincts. Her and her partner just showed up one day and have been hanging around here ever since. I never know where in the garden they will show up next. I've gotten to know them so well I gave them names. Tongue and Cheek. That's Cheeky in the bucket. She doesn't say much. Tongue does all the talking.
Mike

Hey Mike, sounds like we've got something in common. When I first met my wife, she too had a cat named 'Alley Cat', though that cat was never allowed to go outside. Having lived alone with her in an apartment for all its life, it had become quite jealous of her and was not even civil to anyone else. In the end I never got along with that cat even after many years.

The flamingos, on the other hand, are something which we'll never have in common.

This post was edited by maple_grove on Wed, Jan 21, 15 at 12:54

I liked it better when I thought it might be a bear.