Amazing how a tree can grow around an obstacle.

[arbuscula]

I've a Trident maple, purchased as a root over rock style back in 1997~2000 (maybe? Forget when)... it is now a *rock in trunk* specimen. I planted the then Shohin sized tree into a garden container sometime around 2007~9 and put it back into a bonsai pot in 2019~2020.

 

[PA_Penjing]

Seems plausible with the bicycle stuck in a fork.
It was fused laterally but not from the bottom up.
So, how trees grow is still valid.

Ohhh I see, like the fork fused to itself upward with time, all the while pushing the bicycle upward into the new base of the fork until it got caught/wedged and the tree finally grew around it. Word. I’ll go with that

 

[Zac]

I live in farm country and there are tons of fences embedded into trees. Many of them the wire is feet higher up in the tree then the surrounding fence so it somehow is moved up. I don't have pictures but ask any farmer

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

I live in farm country and there are tons of fences embedded into trees. Many of them the wire is feet higher up in the tree then the surrounding fence so it somehow is moved up. I don't have pictures but ask any farmer

I can vouch for that, although I don't have pictures, either. Growing up in Kansas, Hedge Apples grew along fields all over. They are aka Osage Orange or Boise D' Arc (Maclura pomifera), and were widely planted over a hundred years ago along pastures as the range started to be fenced off to separate grazing cattle herds. There are plenty of examples of barbed wire that can easily be ducked under. This is why I am confused. Upward growth, as @leatherback pointed out, occurs at the growing tips, not the base, not in the middle. The branches never get higher on the trunk. They're always the same distance from the ground. So why/how do these absorbed items creep up the trunks?

 

[leatherback]

I live in farm country and there are tons of fences embedded into trees. Many of them the wire is feet higher up in the tree then the surrounding fence so it somehow is moved up.

Osage Orange or Boise D' Arc (Maclura pomifera), and were widely planted over a hundred years ago along pastures as the range started to be fenced off to separate grazing cattle herds. There are plenty of examples of barbed wire that can easily be ducked under.

I drive by a Sycamore tree that has a piece of road guard rail engulfed in its trunk and it's about 12 feet up off the ground.

Well.. Considering it is so common.. Pictures would help.

For now, I stay with it does not happen.

 

[Zac]

Well.. Considering it is so common.. Pictures would help.

For now, I stay with it does not happen.

I don't work on farm anymore so can't get photo easily. Back when I worked on farms I either didn't have a phone or if I did it was a old flip phone with out a camera. Plus since saw it so much never thought it was strange enough to get picture. I'm not saying you are wrong I'm just saying good old mother nature is mystifying.

 

[Yamamomiji]

Ohhh I see, like the fork fused to itself upward with time, all the while pushing the bicycle upward into the new base of the fork until it got caught/wedged and the tree finally grew around it. Word. I’ll go with that.

Exactly, I didn't see it at first too and therefore couldn't explain it.

 

[KateM]

I drive by a Sycamore tree that has a piece of road guard rail engulfed in its trunk and it's about 12 feet up off the ground. Narrow street with a lot of traffic, there is really no way to stop to take a pic...
This style
View attachment 625946

Okay, I did take this road today on the way home and was able to take a pic. It looks like its not a piece of railing, but a piece of a tractor trailer siding, which explains the hight it is at...

 

[Kodama]

Not a farmer but i do have a fence that is consumed by this tree.

 

[KateM]

Another one of my old posts. Pine in Deepcut Gardens in Middletown, NJ.

 

[Wulfskaar]

View attachment 626025
I was always told that trees grow from only the tips. And it appears to be true. But I’ve always wondered why imbedded objects seem to slowly “grow up” the tree. Lore says this bike was chained to the tree in 1914(?) and the owner never came back from war. How did it get so high up? The only thing I can come up with is erosion. But that is far too much earth for that to be the answer. Plus the root base always seems to be in place

I imagine someone hung the bike up decades ago on a broken branch. The bike must have been locked into place by the branch and/or other branches. As the tree grew thicker, it began engulfing the bike.

I've also seen lots of trees growing over barbed wire and chain link fences, but can't recall any that were up high. Maybe those parts got blown up in storms and the farmers never bothered to remove from higher up?

Is it possible the root mass lifted the tree, or that the surrounding ground receded via erosion?

 

[Desert O'Piñon]

Well.. Considering it is so common.. Pictures would help.

For now, I stay with it does not happen.

Is it possible the root mass lifted the tree, or that the surrounding ground receded via erosion?

I don't think it's especially common, per se. But I have seen it, which is why I'm conflicted. Everything I know says it doesn't happen. Except for these one or two examples I remember from my childhood. And I recalled them after reading this thread. But I'm not traveling 700 miles to get a pic or two that I may or may not be able to find. I'll just keep my eyes open next time I'm driving through "flyover country."

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

When trees thicken, the roots also thicken. In 360 degrees. That means the bottom of a round root is also expanding. If you expand something under something, the latter tends to move up. Similar to how trees can lift themselves out of a pot if it's full of roots.
I think that's how things move upwards along with it.

Inflate a balloon under a plate, and see for yourself. Elongating growth happens on the ends of a plant, but thickening growth is all over.

But if someone can show a sideview of a cut tree with something embedded in it, we might get a different picture from the wood and the pattern of the path the object took - or not.