Idle Minutes

Alright. All you botanical experts out there, riddle me this.

This morning I got myself a cup of coffee and took a walk over at a park not far from home. The trail runs alongside a creek with your typical creekside flora and fauna.

I tend to look all around while walking and I looked up at precisely the right time to see this one and only river birch with a twisted trunk.

At first I thought it was one of those burl thingies, you know, those big ol’ growths on tree trunks that are prized by wood turners for making unusual wooden bowls. But on closer study I realized it was quite literally a twist in the growth of the trunk.

To top it off, it was twenty feet up in the air.

So, my botanical friends, what in the world causes a tree to develop a screw shaped twist in its trunk??

Glad I saw it. It was an interesting thing to see. Plus it gave me an opportunity to list some truly scientific reasons of my own in the sketch.