NATURAL MULTIGRAFTED TREE DISCOVERED BY FRIEND!

[897tgigvib]

A friend who lives down in Sonoma County takes long hikes almost every day, often posting photos on her fb page.

Today she posted a photo of a tree she has no idea what it is, but it also has entirely different trees growing out of its branches, at least what I can see in her photo here.

I asked her to do more photos of it, and where on the tree. She may, but the things I'd like to see are up high. So I asked her to contact the botany department at santa rosa junior college.

This photo is not mine. Please respect that this photo belongs to Melanie Griffin and not to me. (As everyone knows, my own photos, heck, if someone wants to make a fortune using my photos all i'd ask is for some doughnuts and to admit I took it, but this one isn't mine).

 

[Carol Dee]

That is really cool looking. The white trees look like birch or aspen to me. But can't make out the leaves. Could a seed have lodged in the bark of the host tree and with the right conditions grown?

 

[897tgigvib]

I am sending an email to the department chair's assistant of the santa rosa junior college botany department right now. Yahoo is being slow to attach right now, but soon as it does I'm sending it.

 

[Nyboy]

would that be a witches broom?

 

[so lucky]

That does look like the growth pattern for witches broom on roses. But I have never seen witches broom on anything but roses, has anyone else? This is pretty exciting. Let's hope Marshall's friend is as straightforward as we know he is, and the lady is not playing a trick on him.

 

[thistlebloom]

It will be interesting to find out what is going on with those trees. Looks to me like it could be water spouts that have started maturing. The bark on the trees below is marked similarly but darker with age or lichens/ algae. ??

 

[Smart Red]

That does look like the growth pattern for witches broom on roses. But I have never seen witches broom on anything but roses, has anyone else? This is pretty exciting. Let's hope Marshall's friend is as straightforward as we know he is, and the lady is not playing a trick on him.

We used to have an area nearby where one arborvitae had a branch that was much lighter than the rest of the tree, with smaller growth. I always considered that part to be a witch's broom. It was way to high to try getting a piece and the new owners cut that tree down.

My first though was water sprouts as well. The old branches (and leaves) look like aged birch. Could there have been a lot of pruning done to the old tree that shocked it into a lot of new growth?

On the other hand. . . . the old tree looks a lot like a river birch, while the new growth looks like paper birch.

 

[897tgigvib]

I messaged Melanie to ask her what kind of tree she thinks the main tree is. In the area she hikes trees are mainly live oak, regular deciduous oak either blak or tan, and some madrone, but there are also other kinds of trees there. She would probably at least know an oak from a madrone, and most folks know a live evergreen oak from a deciduous oak even if they don't know what kind of deciduous oak.

Poison oak can do an apparently similar thing, seeming to continue growing even if the roots are hacked off, but poison oak does not grow straight up. It grows as a wrap around vine. Poison oak as the scion I think is ruled out.

Most likely is what Thistle says, water sprouts with juvenile bark, but the jury is still out

Melanie is well known as very humorous, but I don't think she doctored or made this up some way. Can anyone see any evidence of photoshop splicing? That possibility might have a .02 percent chance.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

Marshall, I have a quick test I can do on GIMP 2.0 for photo-shopped photos, I'll see if I can somehow get that picture of yours into a .jpeg file, and give it a go after school - work. Even though if you ask me, it almost looks like the lighter branches could have been trees in the background at one point.

If not photo-shopped, I'll go with Thistlebloom's explanation that they're premature water spouts. I wouldn't rule out witch's broom though, I have seen a weird looking, ancient sugar maple growing at a friend's house. It looked like it's been struck by lightning but had a few branches growing straight upward with a lighter bark color. That's an unusual picture you've got their Marshall.

 

[baymule]

Really unusual picture ya got there Marshall! What is witches broom?