First of all, I plead guilty to the theft of this idea from
Riverrim, where I first learned the word "inosculation."
In my rambles about Roundrock, I sometimes come upon such evidence of trees having grown around rocks and other objects, essentially making the object a part of the tree. This is common with barbed wire fencing, as everyone knows.
It's not surprising to me that in rocky soil such as we have in the Ozarks, that stones could be absorbed by a root system so that when the tree falls, the rock goes along with it.
A tree is a live thing, of course, and it grows, pushing aside what it can and enveloping what it can't.
Over at Shannon's
Not So Virtual Homestead, she gives an account of her husband finding a stone inside the trunk of a tree he is splitting for firewood. I'm not sure how that stone found its way in there. I know that loggers tell of finding very strange things inside trees, often only when their chainsaws are crippled by striking them.
Perhaps the most famous inosculated item, at least to have been photographed, is an
entire bicycle that has been eaten by a tree. While some believed this to be a hoax, it has apparently been found to be genuine. Honestly, this doesn't surprise me about the vigor of trees.
Missouri calendar:
- New moon: the moon is between the earth and sun; the side away from us is lit by the sun.
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January 18th, 2007 at 8:52 am
I have one of those plants in my office that grows about a foot everyday. When it gets close I shriek and cut it back with scissors. I thought I was just weird but now I see that I have the fear of inosculation. Science explains everything.
January 18th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Is it me, or does that tree appear to be chewing up that sign? Makes me want to pronounce the word… ino-SUC-u-lation…..A bicycle you say? Love it!
January 18th, 2007 at 11:19 am
I still call hoax on the bike.
January 18th, 2007 at 11:42 am
i’m with fc. but i’ve seen enough odd tree growth to believe that something similar could be done, if a person had the dedication.
January 18th, 2007 at 11:48 am
I really like the composition of the middle photo with the lichen and squarish stone.
January 18th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Interesting! All we ever get here is barbed-wire eating trees.
January 18th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Bike eating trees. Triffids. Venus Fly Traps.
We do need ecological change.
January 18th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Surprisingly enough, there is a forest in SC where I hike a lot and on one of the trails there is in fact a tree wrapped around an old bicycle. It is only part of it but pretty neat…unless I was just seeing things. Its on the Stewardship Trail in Harbison State forest…..
January 19th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
I know a tree that is slowly taking into itself a chain link fence that lays against it. The bark has grown through the grid of diamond-shaped openings, and soon the links will disappear completely.