HO MISC. PUBLICATION 295. U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



rical trees and is the largest of the spruces. The freak is a deformed 

 spruce growing among its faultless fellows. Some distance above 

 ground, but apparently while the tree was still in the sapling stage, 

 some accident of growth caused the sending out of two emergency 

 stems horizontally in opposite directions. These horizontals, turning 

 upward after a few feet, form a U which extends to the natural 

 height of the tree. 



PEx\N S YLVANIA 



Old Elephant Tree is a peculiar remnant of a grand old catalpa 

 tree, in Bristol. This is a gigantic stump more than 25 feet high, 

 which, from one viewpoint, looks like an elephant standing on its 

 hind legs. It stands in front of an old homestead and attracts the 

 curious attention of all passers-by. 



The swamp white oak and red maple twin tree, one-half mile south 

 of Doylestown, is a voluntary union of two trees of widely dissimilar 

 families, so rare that it is worthy of record. The first union in growth 

 is about 10 feet from the ground, and the upper and much smaller 

 union is about a foot above the first. The trees are slightly united 

 at other points, and other junctions are in process of forming. 



Siamese Twin white oak is near the village of Gardenville, about 

 4 miles from Doylestovni. Except at the base and again a few feet 

 farther up where they again join, there are two perfect trunks. The 

 oval-shaped opening was not produced by disease or insects. 



RHODE ISLAND 



The Little Old Man in the Tree is a curiously formed English oak 

 on an estate at Newport, so-called because of the twisting of the 

 branches just where the branching begins. 



TENNESSEE 



The Tree With a Handle is near Madisonville. A small limb of 

 this tree has practically completed a circle and grown back through 

 the trunk. 



VIRGINIA 



Jamestown Churchyard Sycamore, which separates the tombs of 

 James Blair, founder of William and Mary College, and that of his 

 wife, Sarah Harrison, has attracted attention for many years because 

 of the havoc it has wrought. Today the sycamore holds within its 

 hollow trunk one fragment of a marble slab while another may be 

 seen embedded in the base of the trunk. 



Octopus Tree. Charles City County, is a tuliptree or yellow poplar, 

 271/2 f eet in circumference 6 feet from the ground and is thought to be 

 more than 500 years old. Some hundreds of years ago, the limbs 

 were probably broken or bent by savages or wild animals, so that 

 they have been distorted into the semblance of a writhing octopus. 



A cedar tree growing in the fork of a locust tree at Rectory has 

 reached such size that it is splitting the locust in two, as reported in 

 the Washington Post, August 1. 1935. 



WASHINGTON 



Armed Oak, at Chehalis, has grown around an old rifle laid in the 

 fork years ago. 



