One time I saw a tree that was four trees.
Really. See?
It’s four big trees that, at their base, you can see are all just part of an even bigger one. So it’s a tree that’s four trees. There’s no other way to describe it.
Here’s a tree that’s eight trees.
This is the Octopus Tree on the coast of Oregon at Cape Meares. It’s a couple hundred years old and has been an important ceremonial site for the Tillamook tribe. Either the Tillamook themselves bent the tree like this, or the wind did it. Either way, there it is.
Here’s a tree that’s forty trees.
It looks like just one ordinary tree, but it’s actually got parts of a bunch of trees grafted onto it, all stone fruit trees, so this one tree grows plums, peaches, apricots, almonds, and others. It’s called the Tree of 40 Fruit and it’s a work of art as well as conservation.
Here’s a tree that’s 40,000 trees!
It’s called Pando, and it’s part of Fishlake National Forest in Utah. What appears to be a grove of multiple quaking aspens roughly 130 years old are actually genetically identical stems all connected to an underground root system estimated to be about 80,000 years old.
Here’s a tree on top of a completely different tree.
It’s a mulberry tree with a cherry tree growing on top. Both trees are thriving just fine in this scenario, which is unusual for epiphytes. It’s located in Italy, where it’s called Bialbero di Casorzo. Also called Grana Double Tree. It looks like someone just picked up the full grown cherry tree and stuck in on top of the mulberry, but it in fact grew there on its own, though how it got there was a mystery.
Here’s a tree growing atop a courthouse clock tower.
This is the clock tower of the Decatur County Courthouse in Greensburg, Indiana. And, ever since the 1870’s, it’s had trees growing out of it. Yes, plural. Some trees lived their whole lives up there and died only for more to sprout. It’s unknown how they got up there or how they’re surviving. They weren’t sure exactly the kind of tree it was until some researchers finally determined it’s a mulberry. Maybe this one will get a cherry tree on top of it, too.
Here’s a tree with its own mobile glass house.
After a whole long history of trying to protect this 18th century tree during the German winter, they finally built a glass house that can move on some tracks to cover it and uncover it as needed.
Here’s a tree that’s also a dining room.
This is the Bowthorpe Oak in Lincolnshire, England, and it’s a big fat pedunculate oak that’s likely over a thousand years old. Its interior has been used as a dining room that could seat 20 people. More recently it’s been mostly a hangout for sheep.
Here’s a tree that’s eating a bench.
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This is Hungry Tree. It is on the grounds of a Dublin law school and is, well, eating this bench.
Here’s some trees that forgot which way to grow.
They eventually figured it out, but now the trees in this Polish forest have all got this uniform northward curve, and no one really knows how or why this happened.
Here’s some trees that look like they’ll grab you if you get too close.
Sweden has an enchanted troll forest full of twisted wind swept trees because of course it does.
Here’s a tree that just might get up and walk away.
It’s called the walking palm because it’s thought these weird stilt roots mean the tree can walk to where there’s more sunlight by putting down more roots in the intended direction and uprooting the back ones. Is this true? No, of course not. But wouldn’t that be cool?
The first image (the tree that’s four trees) is my own. All others are from Wikimedia Commons. Click on them to go to their pages there.
