Big Stump

I pass this stump every day on my walk.   It has been decaying for a long time and the textures are wonderful.



Blow it up and wander around the photo for a while.   Imagine you're looking at a mountainside.  The crags and crevices are something else.

Stump the Reader

This is a gorgeous stump.  

What's more - I actually know what kind of tree this is.   So, bonus points for me because generally I have no idea whatsoever what a tree is unless it has leaves.   I'm good at leaves. 

Game rules:  Tell me what you can about the tree from these pics.

Click to biggify.

Here's a close up of the stuff going on in the center.  

We're guessing ants, but that's just a guess.

If you want a hint, there's a pic of the logs below the fold.

Stump the Readers: The Answers

So this is what we know about this tree.    It's a white oak [I think].    The truth is that I am unreliable at the tree bark ID thing.   If you know better, feel free to correct me.  This stump stayed pale even after a long rainy day, so I'm reasonably confident.   The red oaks go red when wet.

From the holes on the lower half, you can see that this tree was damaged early on and never really recovered.   You can see the scar at the bottom of the pic.   It's big and low - probably damage from a bush hog.   The tree was near the road.  

Also, the growth pattern is much smaller on the bottom half - another indicator of serious damage that it never really recovered from.

Those little dots.   Cool, huh!    Those are the streaks of spalting.going up the tree.  Spalting is the dark marking caused by any of a number of fungi feeding on the tree.   The wiki link has some more really interesting information about it and some great pics of spalted wood. 

Congratulations to you guys who figured out how old it was from the rings!  

I've got my eye out for more interesting stumps, so stay tuned for our next installment.

Stump the Readers

I know you're all fans of my quizzes - especially the poop quizzes.   It's been a while since I've done one and quite honestly I haven't seen any good poop lately, so I've been looking for other fun rural games to play.     It finally dawned on me that there were awesome natural puzzles everywhere around here.

So here's the new game:   Stump the Readers!    Look at the stump and see what you can tell me about the tree.   Feel free to ask questions, too, if you like.

Click the pic to biggify.