Large horizontal tree

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I've seen trees that have huge, horizontal branches low to the ground - not much in the way of a vertical trunk. These trees make excellent climbing trees and tree fort trees.

Do they get that way through pruning, or is it a special breed of tree?

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), March 17, 2001

Answers

what kind of a tree is it?? Some trees just grow weird , all depends on what happened when they were young. I have an oak tree,, thats in a shape of a "W". Some trees are more like large bushes,, with alot of side branches.

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), March 17, 2001.

Around here (Indiana) we have a Blue Beech that grows like that. If you carve stuff on the trunk it scars around it and stays. I think Horse Chestnuts grow more horizontally too.

-- Gailann Schrader (gtschrader@aol.com), March 17, 2001.

There are lots of trees whose natural shape fits that description, but a lot depends on what zone you are in. Several years ago, at our previous house, we had a mature Tipu tree. (Tipuana Tipu). It was about 20 - 25 feet tall, and was shaped like a perfect umbrella, with major branches at all levels, but none touching the ground. However, the leaves grew on long slender twigs that WOULD reach all the way to the ground if they weren't pruned, and let me tell you this tree was a perfect climbing tree because there were branches like steps and when you walked under the greenery of the umbrella it was like a whole new world! I don't have kids, but my cat used to race up the tree and leap from branch to branch to branch. So many times I wished I could be her size and do the same thing because it looked like so much fun! That was in southern California, though. I somehow doubt it would survive in a very cold climate.

-- Leslie A. (lesliea@home.com), March 17, 2001.

Not knowing where you saw this tree makes it hard to guess...but I was going to suggest the Banyan tree, which has rather low horizontal branches that put out aerial roots that form supports for the spreading branches when they contact the ground and become new 'trunks' so that the whole tree turns into a grove. I think that it was a Banyan that they used for the movie Swiss Family Robinson to build the treehouse in. I've seen them in Florida and Hawaii, and they get HUGE. You could probably build a palace of a tree house in one.

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), March 18, 2001.

I'm in zone 4/5

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), March 18, 2001.


Unpruned magnolias do this and they are wonderful for climbing into and disappearing! Spent a good several hours in one onetime, reading a book, and the whole beautiful time I could see out, but few could see in. At the end of my "respite", just as I was leaving, the tree was "mobbed" by a flock of those little starlings that fly in synchronized waves across the skies in the spring and fall. They decended upon the tree en mass to eat the red berry-cones that it produces. From the "inside" of the tree, the experience was just breathtaking!

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), March 18, 2001.

Well in zone 4/5 it surely was not a Banyan. Too bad, they're really cool trees. We have a large red pine growing locally that appears to have been knocked sideways in a windstorm some years ago that is growing horizinally as well as some branches developing like leaders to replace it that would lend itself to a tree house (it is great for climbing) if it weren't in a state forest.

Some folks in my sister's area have a great oak tree (not sure what kind it is, might be a white oak) that they built a treehouse in. I don't see evidence that they removed any limbs to build it, but it did have a multi-leader crown that lent itself to a tree house platform. If you are thinking of growing your own, you can also encourage more lateral growth by propping the branches out that way, or weighting them, like you would with an apple tree to increase production.

I have also seen treehouses built in a circular platform around central single trunks, if you've got a tree large enough to do that with now.

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), March 18, 2001.


The shape of a tree can be influenced by it's surroundings. We have a huge white oak tree in our yard with long spreading branches, each of which are larger than many grown trees. The trunk is nearly five feet in diameter. A forester estimated it to be 300 years old. This tree has stood by itself - no competition from nearby trees - and the branches extend nearly horizontal from the trunk. By comparison, large white oak trees in our woods, surrounded by other trees, are tall and straight, reaching 50 or more feet to the first limb. They are stretching their necks in competition for sunlight.

-- Paul Hoyt (hoyt@egyptian.net), March 24, 2001.

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