January 22, 2021, I revisited the bottomland hardwood forests on the eastern end of the nearby Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. I bushwhack this area at least monthly, especially during the dormant season, when understory vegetation is leafless, briars are easier to avoid, mushrooms are more visible, sweating must be earned, and redbugs, ticks, and biting insects are absent. Sure, saturated soils and some standing water (see below right) often re-route my passage, but waterproof boots handle all but the swampiest locales.

I decided in advance that on this visit, in addition to remaining alert for edible mushrooms, I would focus my attention and camera lens on Indian marker trees. The June 2017 online Treehugger:

If you’ve ever encountered a bent tree while hiking in North American woods, you may have simply happened upon a tree that was bowed by weather, disease or other natural causes. However, you might have stumbled upon an ancient trail marker created by Native Americans hundreds of years ago. Known as trail trees, these markers were used to designate trails, crossing points on streams, medicinal sites to find plants, and areas of significance like council circles.

The online Trail Tree Project offers additional insight:

Hiking along the crest of our mountain ridge in North Georgia, one has little question that the bent trees along the path are the living relics of a lost civilization. Even a century and a half after the Cherokees were shipped west along the Trail of Tears, the shape of the trees themselves maintain the sharp angles that characterize human design rather than the gentle curves that nature carves with wind and climate – curves amply expressed in the neighboring trees. And, in this area, they seem to connect well known Cherokee tribal sites. But how can we know for sure? They’re not particularly huge trees to be centurions. Could their placement on the mountain crests roughly paralleling the path of the original Appalachian Trail have some simple physical explanation? How can we be certain that this isn’t just another romantic rural legend?

I offer this Post to shed some light on whether the tree form oddities and curiosities I encountered can be traced to Native American trail markings, memorials, or other physical demarcations of significant features. I’ve noticed that many of my trail-trekking acquaintances accept the romanticism of “seeing” Native American presence in our forests, embracing the palpable “evidence” of our present day connection to the Native populations forced to leave these lands for western reservations more than 150 years ago. Some see the two sweetgum trees below as interpretable messages left behind. There is no doubt that both trees point to something. I spent years managing industrial forestlands in the southeastern USA, where we achieved maximum timber value production on lands well-suited to intensive management (planting genetically improved stock, competition control, fertilization, and thinning). In gest, I often point out to colleagues that any two trees in our natural stands are arranged in a straight line. Of course they are — just as any leaning tree “points” to something.

The tree below right reminds me of a long-necked green-skinned reptile, head high above the photo frame, with its left foreleg (we can assume one on the other side as well) leading the creature toward the standing water ahead. Both trees at some point suffered a near-crushing blow from above, slamming the then-seedling/sapling to the ground. The left-frame individual sent two shoots (now twin main stems) from the point where the original smashed tree lost its top. The other bent severely, but was not damaged sufficiently to prevent it righting itself, straightening, and reaching toward the vertical again.

During my nine-year faculty and administrative tenure at Penn State University, I often conducted weekend forestry workshops for forest landowners, who almost invariably believed that Pennsylvania’s forests date back as far as “the time of Christ.” However, most of that state’s forests had been clearcut at least once by the mid-to-late Nineteenth Century. Original and old-growth stands are rare. Similarly, most of north Alabama’s forests had been harvested at least once by 1900… nearly a half a century since most Natives had been ushered west. The particular stand I hiked January 22, had been clearcut to prepare for flooding of Lake Wheeler once the TVA completed Wheeler Dam construction and began filling the impoundment. These bottomland hardwood forests occupy lands acquired with purchase of what is now submerged, serving as a TVA-owned buffer to the reservoir. No Native American has hunted or foraged in these forests since well before the TVA acquired and clearcut them. Every tree form oddity and curiosity I encountered originated from Nature acting unassisted by the hand of man.

Like the two individuals above, some force (falling branch, top, or tree) brought a younger version of the trees toward the horizontal. Both “recovered” by sending shoots vertically from the bent saplings. Were these the result of Native American handiwork, what message would you take from the convoluted branching below left? I just visited some of the Indian marker trees (or thong trees) web sites. I see images of larger trees that look just like the tree below left… trees old old enough, I suppose, to have been shaped by the work of Native Americans. Yet, I remind myself and readers that the forest I trekked is no more than 100 years old. In 1831, the U.S. government forced Native Americans to leave their homes in Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama and relocate to Oklahoma, the procession westward becoming known as the Trail of Tears. We can deduce that any Native American-created marker trees would now be at least 190 years old.

The area I hiked supports an even-aged forest naturally regenerated 70-90 years ago. The Native Americans that had roamed this land for 13,000 years, had already been forcibly relocated 100 years before all of the trees in these photos first reached for sunlight. Every tree form oddity and curiosity I encountered is the work of Nature, unassisted by human design, leather thongs, or purposed directional bending. I’ll repeat a 500-year-old Leonardo da Vinci quote that I use frequently in my speaking and writing:

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.

Please know that I am not debunking the notion that Native Americans had learned and applied a means of marking trails, springs, villages, burial grounds, and other such places and memorials of significance. I offer da Vinci’s observation only to remind us that those remarkable first Americans simply borrowed from Nature’s toolkit. Long before Native Americans crossed the Bering Land Bridge and ventured south and east into our state, trees and heavy branches had fallen onto other trees, bending, breaking, and laying them toward the horizontal. Through her inventions, Nature found ways to deal with those physical abuses. Recall the axiom: Necessity is the mother of invention. The driving imperative across Nature is to survive and reproduce, to ensure species (and individual) sustainability.

da Vinci also observed, Necessity is the mistress and guardian of Nature.

Every tree in this photo-series suffered physical damage… and survived, continuing to reach into the canopy and achieve seed-bearing age. Native Americans survived and thrived over 13 millennia by learning from Nature and living in harmony with her. I am certain that they learned from Nature how to create marker trees. This sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), bent severely as a sapling, sent three sprouts vertically.

The two sweetgum trees below recovered from being slammed to the ground as a seedling/sapling, and sending sprouts vertically, now reaching into the intermediate canopy.

The pattern of battery and recovery repeats often and continuously. We’ve all heard the human wisdom, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. I am not suggesting that these trees are stronger because the fates dropped a branch on them. Instead, Nature prepares for any eventuality.

Our esteemed da Vinci did not miss much, observing that:

Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.

I won’t speculate on the injury and response mechanism that shaped the two forms below. Nor did da Vinci, knowing the infinite range of possibilities within Nature, try to imagine and catalog all possibilities:

Nature is full of infinite causes that have never occurred in experience.

More than two centuries ago, English poet William Cowper observed, Variety’s the very spice of life, that gives it all its flavour. I found a forest of rich variety as I roamed the January bottomland forest.

I’ve travelled through time for nearly 70 years (at a constant pace of 60-minutes-per-hour) and made 13 interstate moves. We have friends who have across those seven decades resided in the same town where we graduated high school. They have lived deep; Judy and I have lived wide. I’ve now visited this bottomland hardwood forest a dozen times. My understanding is deepening. Each visit opens my eyes to the incredible richness of variety:

• Hour by hour
• Day to day
• Season to season
• Tree by tree
• Stand by stand

Nothing in Nature is static. With his timeless wisdom, da Vinci noted, Nature never breaks her own laws. Whether instigated by a falling branch or guided by the hand of man securing a rawhide binding, Nature follows her own laws. She worries not of the cause (man or gravity-induced fate), but simply applies her wisdom to secure species/individual sustainability.

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer three observations from my late November trek through the bottomland forest:

• Everything in Nature occurs in accord with her own immutable laws
• Folklore and fancy often reach beyond reality
• Yet, woods-lore enriches our appreciation of Wildness

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

• I love hiking and exploring in Nature
• I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
• I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
• I don’t play golf!
• I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
• Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
• And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.

I returned November 30 mid-morning to the eastern end of nearby Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. As is often the case for my Refuge excursions, I bushwhacked through the bottomland hardwood forests. I saw and photographed enough magic and wonder to yield two Blog Posts. I focused the first one last week on the fungi and non-flowering plants I encountered:

I celebrate the bottomland hardwood and its forest tree oddities and curiosities with this second Post. I hope you’ll pardon a little mirthful image play!

The Bottomland Hardwood Forest

Typical of these very productive bottomlands along the Tennessee River (now Lake Wheeler), the forests are diverse, generally 70-90 years old, and 80 to well over 100 feet tall. During this walk I found a recently wind-thrown oak and paced its height (well, okay, its length) at 112 feet. The point is, these are rich sites.

Although there is nothing unusual about this shagbark hickory (Carya ovata), the species’ signature bark is a curiosity in and of itself. Some species of bats seek shelter under the bark strips. I have long been a fan of shagbark hickory, even when as a practicing forester I had to maneuver my diameter tape under the strips to make an accurate measurement of a tree’s diameter. The sawyer doesn’t care what the diameter is of the shagginess; he cares only about the wood and its merchantable yield.

Okay, now I enter the realm of true tree form oddities and curiosities.

Tree Form Curiosities

Bear with me. Upon encountering this misshapen sugar maple (Acer saccharum), I snapped a photo because of its distorted burl shape, the few small stems protruding from surface warts, and its profuse covering of mosses. It wasn’t until I inserted the photo in this Post that I noticed the image of my favorite Wookie, Chewbacca, gazing to the forward right, just like he is in the photo I borrowed from a uncredited website.

I discovered no hidden images in this wounded sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) that is fighting a losing battle with heart rot. The stem is attempting to callous over the old wound even as the decay is eating more deeply and most likely extending upward into the trunk. Keep in mind that the fungi is consuming only dead wood, the structural and load-bearing interior wood. Only the rind of any tree constitutes the living cambium, the conducting xylem and phloem tissue. Apparent in this view is that some living creature (e.g. chipmunk. squirrel, bird, insect) is working to increase the hollow, depositing excavated woody debris from within. The fight will continue until some tipping point is reached or the tree succumbs from other causes.

The Morton Arboretum website describes cankers, the growths below on a red oak species and a hickory: A ‘canker’ is really a symptom of an injury often associated with an open wound that has become infected by a fungal or bacterial pathogen. Canker diseases frequently kill branches or structurally weaken a plant until the infected area breaks free, often in a wind or ice storm. These are classic specimens. In effect, they act as benign tumors… a non fatal cancer. Both the oak and the hickory seemed otherwise healthy, the structural weakness not manifesting any detectable deterioration of tree vigor and vitality.

This oak stands adjacent to the HGH access road, which leads me back to the gravel lot and my car after my forest ramblings. I’ve seen it many times, giving my brain ample time to construct a vivid image.

A visage that takes me back to my days as Vice Chancellor at NC State University, home of the Wolfpack. The wolf with the cap greets me with an imagined wink when I pass. No menacing growl from this canine. More a faint good-natured smile. I suppose that were I a Duke Blue Devil or a Carolina Tar Heel (bitter rivals of the Wolfpack on the field of play), the thinly concealed grin would transform to a vicious snarl!

Again, nothing fanciful with this tortured sweetgum, yet another individual fighting the good fight with heart rot. The swollen trunk signals deep decay. Fungi fruiting bodies along the left side suggest cambium on that side is dying. Fighting the good fight may be an overstatement; this tree is, it appears, losing the good fight. As I have said with nearly every one of my forest Posts, life and death operate hand-in-hand. Nothing mirthful about the situation facing this sweetgum.

If possible, this oak may be in even worse straits, its life on the edge. Again, it wasn’t until I placed the photo in this Post that I saw proof that we are in Alabama, home of the National Championship Crimson Tide and its mascot Big Al. The photo speaks for itself.

The woods are filled with fanciful images and faces. I suppose they are, in fact, as Robert Frost proclaimed in Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, lovely, dark and deep. Not dark and sinister, foul and repugnant, nor teeming with savage beasts. These bottomland hardwood forests fill me with their beauty, magic, wonder, and awe.

Hardwoods Straight and Tall

I captured these two photos during a previous visit this past summer, depicting the forest in its full majestic glory. Trees stout and towering… no tortured forms nor blemishes. These are the trees of forest glamour magazines, with coifed hair, flattering makeup, fresh from the gym, six-pack abs, and just-right lighting. Except that these are the real thing… no photo-shopping. Yet, this isn’t Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. Even these rich sites produce forests of mixed vintage, with trees ranging from the beauties below to the misshapen forms and curiosities above. I suppose such is the way of Nature. Variety, in point of fact, whether within forests or of human populations, is the spice of life, survival, and evolution.

Beauty surely is in the eye of the beholder. Retired Steve sees magnificence across the forest spectrum.

Amazing Find

November 30 brought a big surprise, one of a very positive nature. August 8, 2020, I had bushwhacked this same bottomland forest. When I emerged onto the gravel road for trekking back to my vehicle, I noticed the empty selfie-stick sling at my side. I re-entered the woods to search, the forest rich with undergrowth all about me. See the two photos immediately above. While not impenetrable thickets, the forest floor is not bare and open to finding an 18-inch collapsed telescoping rod. I abandoned the search after 30 minutes of trying to retrace the rambling pathway I had taken. On each subsequent trundle through these woods, perhaps three times since mid-August, I stayed alert for the rod, without success. As I was nearing the road for my return to the parking area, I saw a shiny object in the autumn leaf litter several feet ahead. Only the two-inch square reflecting pad (below) peeked through the litter, the rest of the rod effectively hidden!

I observe often that Nature keeps much of her beauty, magic, wonder, and awe hidden in plain sight. Apparently that is not all she hides. So, November 30, 2020, proved to be a good day. Lots of fungi, ferns, and mosses; fanciful tree form oddities and curiosities; a months-long missing piece of equipment revealed to a forest wanderer (and wonderer)!

Thoughts and Reflections

I offer two observations from my late November trek through the early winter riparian forest:

• There’s pure magic in the southern riparian forest… whether in towering trees or in strange and distorted sylvan Nature-creations
• Each tree tells a story, demanding forest sleuthing and, occasionally, vivid imagination

Inhale and absorb Nature’s elixir. May Nature Inspire, Inform, and Reward you!

If only more of us viewed our precious environment through the filters I employ. If only my mission and vision could be multiplied untold orders of magnitude:

Steve’s Three Books

I wrote my books Nature Based Leadership (2016), Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading (2017), and Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits: Stories of Passion for Place and Everyday Nature (2019; co-authored with Dr. Jennifer Wilhoit) to encourage all citizens to recognize and appreciate that every lesson for living, learning, serving, and leading is either written indelibly in or is powerfully inspired by Nature.

I began writing books and Posts for several reasons:

• I love hiking and exploring in Nature
• I see images I want to (and do) capture with my trusty iPhone camera
• I enjoy explaining those images — an educator at heart
• I don’t play golf!
• I actually do love writing — it’s the hobby I never needed when my career consumed me
• Judy suggested my writing is in large measure my legacy to our two kids, our five grand kids, and all the unborn generations beyond
• And finally, perhaps my books and Blogs could reach beyond family and touch a few other lives… sow some seeds for the future

All three of my books (Nature Based Leadership; Nature-Inspired Learning and Leading; Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) present compilations of personal experiences expressing my (and co-author Dr. Wilhoit for Weaned Seals and Snowy Summits) deep passion for Nature. All three books offer observations and reflections on my relationship to the natural world… and the broader implications for society. Order any and all from your local indie bookstore, or find them on IndieBound or other online sources such as Amazon and LifeRich.