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The Shyness of Trees

Tree Crown Shyness

From Robert Macfarlane’s fascinating Twitter account comes this new-to-me term: crown shyness, a phenomenon where the leaves and branches of individual trees don’t touch those of other trees, forming gaps in the canopy.

According to Wikipedia, there are several possible causes of this phenomenon, including the inhibition of the spread of organisms harmful to trees, damage or stunted growth of new shoots caused by the trees knocking into one another in the wind, or stunting of growth because of mutual shading. Whatever the cause, I think we can all agree that the effect looks hella rad. Photo by Dag Peak from Flickr.

See also wolf trees.