Saw a huge old oak with a weird growth pattern in a park near Cincinnati

I was walking through Eden Park yesterday and stopped to look at this massive white oak near the overlook. It had this big, burly burl about eight feet up on the trunk, but the crazy part was how the main branches grew in a perfect spiral around it (like a corkscrew, you know?). I've never seen a tree manage its structure like that to work around a defect. Has anyone else run into a mature tree that grew in a full spiral like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

grayb646d agoMost Upvoted

Guess the tree was trying to unscrew itself.

gibson.sean6d ago

Hah, good one @grayb64. That's some serious reverse engineering from the tree. Next thing you know, it'll be trying to change its own oil. I've seen some twisted grain before, but that thing looks like it spent its whole life trying to become a giant corkscrew. Nature is weird sometimes.