Happy Father's Day and all that.
I found a puzzle for you.
This is a tree that grows beside my residence hall. Clearly, there is something strange going on. What are the (I'm assuming) two types of tree here?
A little history of The Vines, my residence hall.*
It was built in 1889 by Sydney Howard Vines (1849-1934) after he was elected a fellow at Magdalen College, where C. S. Lewis was a fellow between 1925-1954. Vines, after which the building was named, was an excellent botanist, though not a great teacher. He eventually withdrew to his house to tend the garden. Eventually it passed into the hands of Oxford United Hospitals as a nurses' home, then to Oxford Brooks University as a student residence hall, and finally to SCIO, the program with which I am studying, in 2004.
I'm thinking that Vines grafted two trees together just to see what would happen and it seems to have flourished.
*Adapted from the SCIO Handbook
Bonus:
This is a 1,100 year old yew tree next to the Norman Church in Iffley. I never got a full shot of it, so ignore Dr. Jenkins. They were sacred to the Saxons and were often put on the south side of sacred burial grounds. The church was built after the tree was already a couple of hundred years old in c. 1170 and hasn't changed much since.
Thanks Molly. While fishing at the Black River yesterday pm. (Yes, trout for dinner again!) I found, written into the sand in the hollow of a boulder "Happy Father's Day". That was a nice touch.
ReplyDeleteThe tree is a grafted elm. There is one version called a Camperdown Elm, where the top portion is grafted upside-down, and grows into a convoluted umbrella shape. I happened to have recorded the largest one in Vermont. If it has that shape, then it may be a Camperdown. If not, then it is some other form of grafted elm. How about a picture of the whole thing?
That sounds tasty! I actually went to a pub called The Trout last night. A nice place by the Themes beyond Port Meadow. I don't think the elm has the Camperdown crown but I'll send pictures your way. The ones I saw on the internet also didn't have the distinct bark change.
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