Trees do not waste their energy growing branches and twigs whose leaves will not reach the sunlight. In this little grove of trees, the two on the left and right edges have put all their efforts into growing branches on the exterior of the clump, and almost none in the middle. The trees in the middle have simply grown straight up, adding twigs and leaves at the top. As a result, the entire copse has the same shape as a single tree growing all alone in the middle of a field, and each individual tree gets a decent share of the solar power.
It somehow reminds me of Indian dancers with many arms:
[Photo credit: By Will Folsom [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons]
In writing this, it occurred to me that English has many names for a small group of trees: coppice, copse, spinney, stand, grove. I chose “grove”, “clump”, and “copse”, just for variety. Unsurprisingly, we also have lots of names for rain: shower, drizzle, downpour, deluge, .. and indeed for coffee.
Eyes on the Wild 
Your posts are so much fun! The Indian dancers! And the tree comments, the deer, swans…
Thank you Moira for being the hostess with the mostest. Annie had a great time, too. It was such a good overnight, the dinner, the walk, the changing weather and your wonderful “little store”. Wouldn’t it be nice if our Center Lovell could evolve and be of use to the community all year round in this cozy way? More small tables in front to stop for coffee and a read or a chat, maybe even eat out there instead of only the restaurant, with its slight restaurant formality?
Let me know how you and George resolve the leaking house problem, and perhaps May in Lovell when the ferns unfurl?
xox Anne
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this is quite intelligent.
George
On Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 3:19 PM, Eyes on the Wild wrote:
> myip2014 posted: “Trees do not waste their energy growing branches and > twigs whose leaves will not reach the sunlight. In this little grove of > trees, the two on the left and right edges have put all their efforts into > growing branches on the exterior of the clump, and almo” >
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Nice analysis of the growing pattern, never noticed it before.
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