10 Crazy Tree Photos from Around the World
Trees are beautiful and purify the air we breathe, but they can also be breathtaking, funny, and just plain weird. Get ready to see infrared trees and trees with faces, 1,000-year-old trees and trees from the future. Let’s take a trip around the world to look at 10 crazy tree photos from four different continents!
1. Great Banyan Tree – India
This looks like a forest, but believe it or not, it’s just one tree. In 1925 the central trunk had to be removed due to rot, but the rest of the tree is still alive and well. It lives in a botanical garden near Kolkata, India.
Photo: McKay Savage
2. The Shoe Tree – USA
Photo: Chuck Coker
This one is crazy not because of the tree itself, but because of the strange items that adorn it. (Um… that’s a lot of shoes.) This tree in Amboy, California collapsed back in 2010, but that didn’t stop people from adding their footwear to its branches. It has more shoes than ever! It was one of at least 76 shoe trees in America where people stashed old shoes.
3. Temples of Angkor – Cambodia
Photo: Denver Vender
This giant tree has so far managed to coexist with the Ta Prohm temple ruins in Cambodia, which were originally built as a Buddhist monastery and university somewhere around the 12th and 13th centuries. People have nicknamed this species the “spung” tree — its technical name, Tetrameles nudiflora, is a bit tricky.
These trees are common in southern Asia, but most people agree that this one is by far the craziest! Check out this video of a similar spung tree nearby.
4. Tree of 40 Fruit – USA
Happy #ArborDay! Tree as art: growing 40 different kinds of fruit http://t.co/ZHCjBJG4YS pic.twitter.com/lEg4IBsPbT
— Smithsonian Magazine (@SmithsonianMag) April 24, 2015
This is the only one that’s not technically a photo. It’s an artist’s rendering of what a real life tree of 40 fruit might look like in 10 years. What’s a tree of 40 fruit? Artist Sam Van Aken created 18 of them with tree grafting. The name comes from the fact that each one can produce 40 different kinds of fruit. It started as an art project. Now it’s a conservation and education method.
5. Infrared Palm Trees – USA
Photo: Thomas
These bizarre but beautiful Hawaiian palm trees probably look completely normal in real life. This is infrared photography, which means the photo reveals infrared light, light that lies just beyond the visible spectrum. So we can get a glimpse of the light we can’t see with the naked eye. (Learn more about infrared photography here.)
6. Hanging Tree Tent – Spain
I can’t tell you what kind of tree we’re looking at, but this is certainly a crazy tree photo. Spending the night in a hanging tent sounds fun, but don’t try this at home. If you want to spend some quality time up in your tree, check out this post on building a treehouse.
7. Two Spirits Sculpture – Canada
Photo: GoToVan
You can find this this giant carving at Stanley Park in Vancouver, B.C. An artist carved the striking face into the trunk of this giant tree stump in the mid 1900s.
The Two Spirits Sculpture (a.k.a. the “God Head”) is hidden in the park’s forest — many people search and can’t even find it!
8. Baobab Tree – Madagascar
Photo: Bernard Gagnon
Native to Madagascar, baobab trees have a long, bulbous trunk with little leaves and branches that look sprout-like in comparison. They can live over 1,000 years.
This particular type is called a Grandidier’s baobab, or simply a giant baobab, because it’s the largest species of baobab tree.
9. Welcome Pine – China
Photo: Chi King
Have you ever seen a tree growing out of the side of a cliff face before? This one is the well-known Ying Ke, or Welcome pine.
It lives in Huangshan (Chinese for “Yellow Mountains”), an area famous for its sunsets, strangely shaped granite peaks, hot springs, and many other beautiful natural features.
10. Goats Climbing Trees – Morocco
The Amazing Goat Tree. pic.twitter.com/V0IycvHJZs
— Gautam Trivedi (@Gotham3) April 28, 2015
As if shoe trees weren’t weird enough.
You might be wondering if this is real, but ask a Moroccan, and they’ll tell you that some goats are actually master tree climbers. Argan trees like this one drop their fruit in July. These goats love argan fruit, so they often head up there to grab some before it falls.
The world is full of crazy trees. We just scratched the surface in this post, but I hope you enjoyed the trip. Which tree was your favorite?
For help choosing or planting unique trees, contact our Certified Arborists today.
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