I came across this striking image long ago but don’t remember what the location was. The trees lining the path up to the really old looking building have all had something done to them, maybe three or four feet from the ground. There’s a really dark looking ‘scar’ mark that seems to circle them, and it doesn’t seem to be just a surface marking because the tree’s bark above the line is significantly lighter and smoother than the bark below it.
I’m guessing it was a ‘cosmetic’ thing, but I’ve never come across any references to this type of thing elsewhere, and of course I don’t have a name for the technique to search with.
I am almost certain that this question has come up before on SDMB, but I have no success in finding it.
To kill a tree, the “girdle” - and I am in doubt that that is the term of art - needs to be much wider. Like 30cm.
Those thin scars look much more, to me, as the tree growing around wire loops. Perhaps the trees were part of the supporting structure of a wire fence.
I think some remains of whatever was attached to the trees are still there. Look at the center trees on the left – there appear to be chunks of (possibly metal) attached to them.
Thirded. I might call this the result of wires being “included” into the bark, but that may not be quite the right use of that term.
Note also that not all the trees’ barks change colors above the inclusion mark – some do, some don’t. I don’t know what that means, just pointing it out. It’s by no means certain that those trees will die, trees are very hardy and inventive at overcoming trauma.
I’m going to further guess that this is an old dwelling that had been abandoned for a while, long enough for the trees to grow around the wires (or whatever it was). Maybe a new owner is trying to clean it up, and they started by removing the structure that was impinging on the trees.
On two of the trees, one left and one right, what’s attached looks like a floodlight (of more or less this kind), so maybe what made the ring was part of the support structure for that?
You’ll also notice the security camera strapped to one tree. I suspect this is because the place used to be owned by Wilkins, the Puerto Rican singer (or still is owned?).
It seems to have been abandoned recently, though, possibly reverted to its old name of Castillo San Alberto, and lots of Argentine “urban explorers” seem to come tramping over it (check out Youtube) - Their use of camera drones and the recentness of the posts probably means these aren’t pre-Wilkins videos - compare what it looked like when he was still living there
Woo hoo! Score another mystery solved thanks to the SD Collective Mind! Now we not only know where the picture comes from, but I think you’ve nailed down the cause: not some deliberate ‘cosmetic’ technique by humans, but an unplanned side effect of pursuing some other practical goal.
This turned out not likely to be the solution, but certainly exploring the idea of girdling trees led me to several very interesting articles and a really nice youtube video instructional video. The things you can learn…
Very likely, and I’ll bet it was posted by me. Back when I came on the picture I’d saved it to my computer…somewhere. Let’s say my filing skills are challenged, yes? So I asked about the phenomenon on the SD but wasn’t able to link to the photo, and that time there were no replies. A picture may not be worth a thousand words, but it clearly is worth a dozen plus replies.
More fascinating by-roads to wander down. Who knew you chop up tree’s barks to INCREASE how much fruit they bear??? It seems it should be just about as good an idea as cutting off strips of hide from dairy cows to cause them to make more milk.
And here we have what seems like the winner! A perfectly reasonable desire to have lights along a path to your house and the side result makes sense.
Added evidence was another picture linked by Mr. Dibble which shows the ringed trees are actually spaced out way more widely than the first shot made them look. I mean, nobody would need lights on each tree if they were only a foot or so apart, right?
Thanks for IDing the location and all the links! I’m actually surprised at how well mannered the ‘urban explorers’ seem to be in Argentina. All those stained glass window left perfectly intact after apparently years of abandonment? In Boston, they’d have been smashed by vandals within a week.
And thus my nagging curiosity about the Weird Trees is successfully slaked. Thank you all!
These remind me of trees I recently saw in a city in Japan. When young, each tree was fitted with a heavy steel brace: two posts, anchored in the ground, held a ring around the trunk about five feet above the ground. The trees eventually grew to the point that the trunks were being strangled by their rings:
The trees were still alive and apparently healthy when I saw them, but ISTM they’ll want to remove those rings at some point, lest they kill the trees.
Depending on the species I suppose, but I expect that if left alone those trees would successfully grow around the rings and embed them in their structure. At some point, you would see the two legs disappearing into the tree, and the ring would no longer be visible. At some later point, even the legs would disappear into the tree. At this point, it might be worse for the tree if someone were to remove the ring, as it would expose the wound to disease and insects. Trees are stubborn and creative creatures.
This reminds me of a pest treatment I saw in my neighborhood in the 1950s, and it probably was not what’s seen here. All the trees on my street had a narrow band of sticky stuff around each trunk, about shoulder-high. Years later, I asked a Purdue University tree guy about it, and he said it was called Tanglefoot. The idea was to keep bugs from climbing the trees and doing damage. He also said there’s two kinds. That was Bug Tanglefoot. There’s also Bird Tanglefoot, which is meant to discourage bird roosting on windowsills and roofs.
