I was on another foray. Crawling under hawthorns, losing and reclaiming my hat, using my new stick (a gift from Doisy and Dam) as a kind of extra arm, when I came across this unfortunate youngster.
These plastic coats are meant to protect young trees but this one didn't appreciate it. Mind you, it has adapted. What resilience! What determination!
I have a feeling that when I was investigating root flare - thanks to CC - the piece mentioned that plastic things are another crime against trees. Certainly, when you pull it away, the inside is humid and a lovely habitat for bugs, where it should be dry.
To cheer myself up, I went here.
That is the Ancient Oak through the now navigable poplar plantation.
I was trying to find a variety of moss specimens for a workshop in a few weeks time. I had discovered that I could keep the moss alive in a terrarium and was trying to get back to the place where I had noticed four different mosses a while back.
But the wood kept turning me around. I was always walking to this oak or the young one that grows into the ride.
It's so small, this copse, but as I wander and wonder, looking at footprints and plants (lesser celandine, for example), I find that when I look up, I am somewhere different from where I thought I would be. This is a feeling I love. Though I wish the space were larger and I were not always coming to the edges.
While in the trees, I switch off the audiobook. I take the ear buds out. I can just be. I am the wanderer.
BUT I do want to tell you what I have been listening to - and, Oh Reader! Do yourself a favour and get this. It's FREE on Audible!!! The Trees in my Forest by Bernd Heinrich - yes, he of the ravens. It is incredible. about how apple trees only grow as many apples as they can carry on their branches. they selectively abort. About the relationships between sapsuckers, humming birds, birches, aspens, a fungus, insects and the forest at large. About club mosses and white pines. About mast years and symbiosis and ants, aphids and wasps. It's BRILLIANT.
GET IT NOW!!!!!
Eventually I got the moss.
Coincidentally after seeing your exceedingly twisted young tree, I came across a neat word "krummholz", and a neat project here on PEI studying the stunted North Shore trees - https://macphailwoods.org/projects/krummholz . NOT why the tree in your post is twisted -- but interesting. And the Wikipedia article is good too - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krummholz I'm wondering if the young tree maybe lost it's leader and a side branch turned up as in "reaction wood" - Just guessing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_wood
Your recommendation for The Trees in My Forest is noted!! Not free here but it may be a good choice when I get my next credit :-)