I'm going to head back as soon as possible and measure the circumference of this tree.
Well, I was able to wander into a patch of old trees on my route
today. From what I've been able to gather, it was spared from being bulldozed because someone noticed that it was the site of a slave cemetery. The right folk fought the developers, had the land declared some kind of historic site, and thus the trees have been spared.
I had noticed for a long time that there are some big trees in there. Not least because one of the trees visible from the street is a bottle- shaped poplar large at the base which quickly tapers. Looking at the grove, I could tell that there were some even larger trees partially hidden.
The graveyard? Not certain, but level, free of trees, and covered in ivy.
So, today, on my lunch break, I took my camera and wandered in there. I should have taken my tripod, but I didn't and had to make do by finding sapling and bushes on which to balance my camera when I wanted to put myself in the photo for size reference. There were some very big trees in the grove, especially one poplar which appears to be fused from two or three trees. Its circumference is ridiculous at breast height, and I'll return to record it as soon as I can.
Things like this are always amazing to me. To think that these huge old trees exist in the midst of a vast, urban sprawl is both amazing and pathetic.
Things like this are always amazing to me. To think that these huge old trees exist in the midst of a vast, urban sprawl is both amazing and pathetic.
Surrounded by urban sprawl, a tiny patch of old trees.
2 comments:
you have a wonderful obsession....and I love to find those bits of wild woods in the midst of peopleland--as a child I would drop into them as though they were the door to Middle Earth
This patch is exceptional because some of the trees seem to be hundreds of years old. I would tend to believe that it was, indeed, a graveyard, which is what spared this patch from being plowed as farmland amidst what was, until about fifty years ago, a vast farm.
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