Crooked Forest in Poland

I took the liberty of adding a link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047406/The-crooked-forest-Fantasy-woodland-come-straight-fairytale.html

I tend to agree with the hypothesis in the article; that they were intentionally manipulated to serve a specific purpose.

I've been working on creating some trippy looking crepe myrtles in my yard by manipulating the branches. I'll post a pic later.

Seeing as they are all "kinked" down close to the ground, I would suggest that the seedlings were rolled over by something heavy when they were young (but established). They were bent over but not killed, so they continued to grow, and their natural inclination was to continue upward. This would cause the stem to bend around and eventually become vertical. There is no need for drums or tanks for them to grow around.

I have seen similar things with varieties of pine trees, particularly scotch pines, when a hard frost or something kills the bud at the crown of the tree. Since it cannot continue to grow from that bud, one of the branches at the first junction down (branches grow in annual "rings" on the stem) curves upward to become the new crown.

Before woodworkers discovered the steam box for shaping timber, they employed different methods of shaping the timber for specific uses....as shipbuilding increased the naturally occurring shapes in the trees were in high demand, and a practice of altering the natural growth pattern was adopted....

These trees do not look that old. Since they were pretty young at the outbreak of WWII, it would seem logical that an event such as an explosion, or being rolled over by vehicles in a column could explain it. The forest is on the border with Germany, so a column would make some sense.

The linked article states it was a grove...so there...oh, wait...all of these theories are on Wikipedia (as I write this I am reading about it)

Nevermind...cool anyway

I took this picture in a recently burned area near my village (Traid, Guadalajara, Spain).

This tree was unknown to most of the people there (including me), being surrounded by a nice forest now unfortunately lost.

It has been christened the "chair tree" in the meantime.

Due to the position, there was no chance for a heavy machine to pass trough. The area is only accesible now, since drag machinery is removing the burnt trees.

No other similar tree in the area.

The comparison of the pictures, from Poland and Spain, makes me wonder how, if as suggested by a previous poster, the trees were bent by some tank or truck passing, the resulting elbow is not in a higher position, due to the tree natural growth.

Salu2 cordiales,

Abel

Those Polish trees are bent pretty much right at the ground. Accounting for root lift and natural erosion/soil displacement...being bent as saplings makes sense.

Your Spanish tree however...that's a lot of erosion to account for!

Natural tree growth does not elongate the tree's trunk as it gets older. The tree only grows taller at the tip of the branches / crown. The trunk will become larger in diameter, but a branch that forks 1m above ground when it is 3 years old will still be 1m above ground when it is 30 years old. Your "chair tree" was somehow damaged at the height you see, and the bend will always stay at that height.

Please explain this:I have seen fences that were nailed to trees 20 feet up in the trees.They were nailed to a board that was nailed to the tree.As the tree grew, it took the board and fence with it.There are 30 acres of wooded land bordering my property,and a farmer used to let his hogs free range in the woods,controlled by a livestock fence and electric wire.I helped install the fence.I asked why put the boards between the fence and tree, and he said it was to prevent the bark from growing over the wire.Made sense to me.Now, 35+years later, he has passed on, and the timber was sold.The fence,that used to hug the ground, is now 20 feet up the side of the trees.

The lumber men said it was very common, but I thought it was strange.

These were sweet gum and black gum trees.Evidently, the outside bark must move as the tree grows, because we used # 16 galvanized nails in the fence boards into the tree.Quite a deep penetration.

Go figure.

That is unusual, and maybe there are some species that do extend their bark longitudinally (such as the gum trees you have). However, pretty much the normal growth condition is that the height of a "feature" of a tree (branch, knot, damage to bark or wood, attachment of fence) will stay at the same height as it started on the tree over time. This is also the case with most other plants. The lowest branches on the maple and hickory trees in my backyard haven't changed in height since I bought the place 30+ years ago, although the trees have grown from 6"-8" diameter to 16"-18" now (and 40' tall to 80'-90').

This was probably the result of a prank by an immature person, not necessarily a child at the time, by just bending a sapling over about 90 degrees, and allowed to continue growing, while the rest of the (uncrimped?) trees were all eventually harvested, probably for construction and/or fire wood.

What do the older residents say about it?...

A prank pulled by an immature person, in the middle of the woods, that nobody's going to notice for 30+ years?

Now that's my kind of prankster. I'd like to meet him.

Definitely takes the long view on HIS (or HER) humor, no? I'd hate to think how long it takes that one to get REVENGE on someone. That dish isn't cold, it's flat out ICY!!

I was going to add the, (or her), to my comment; but after thinking about it; no woman would ever be dumb enough to do that.

In the Sierra Nevada Mountains, of California, USA, in a town called Pollock Pines, at the elementary School, called Pinewood Elementary, outside the school fence, WAS a tree (46 years ago, as I write this) that had been knocked down as a sapling, in heavy undergrowth. The tree, in order to reach steady sufficient sunlight, grew sideways for almost 25 feet, before rearing straight up for the rest of it's height. All along the horizontal part of the trunk, branches grew upward. None grew from the underside of the horizontal length. In the vertical part, which rose later, some 10 years into its growth, branches grew out on all sides, as would be normal.

The tree was of a breed called a "Silvertip Pine". The first, and thus, top, 20 to 25 feet of this breed of tree is a light, silvery colored bark, while the rest is normal brown tree bark. I spotted the tree coming up in the forest when it was young, and observed its growth over the years I lived there. Others observed and discussed it through the years as we watched it grow. I cannot provide a photo, but it is most interesting to see a tree with a trunk more than 3 feet in diameter, with its underside roughly one foot above the ground, growing horizontally some 20 to 25 feet, then suddenly shooting straight up out of the undergrowth for a further 100 or so feet, with only the top 20 to 25 feet showing the distinct silvery color of a Silvertip Pine.

This tree became part of a "Nature Trail" we used in our Science Program at that school to explore natural phenomena and how they occur. It was because of the encouragement of my Science Teachers there that I am fascinated by Science still, today, at 58 years old, and it was because of those teachers that I tutor Science Fair Students now, and judge Science Fair competition.

I don't suggest that the Crooked Forest, the Chair Tree, nor any of the others mentioned in this thread were caused by the same phenomenon as ours, but I point out our tree as one way it could happen, and, in at least one case we know of, did.

As the Japanese would say: Bonsai!

I have seen pine woodlots damaged by ice storms. The damage was severe enough to break trees but many survived and then grew with a long curve. Mostly it was a single long S curve and then the tree grew straight after the S curve; albeit, off centre. I had one on my own property that was damaged but grew with an S curve. It kind of looked like the wood of a palm tree with the curve. Just wondering if the trees in Poland could have been similarly damaged. Interesting posts from Kamarat.

You very well could be right about this.

There's no reason why one group of people in one part of the world couldn't figure out something that another group also figured out how to do.

Good input!!!