Deep in the Woods.

I came across the remains of the roots of this old fallen tree the other day, it reminded me of the tail plane of an aircraft; but maybe that's just a figment of my deranged imagination.

Some years ago, I heard of archaeologists trying to work out why stone-age man would want to dig out semi-circular pits; there were lots of them around and they seemed to serve no purpose. The shape appeared to be quite arbitrary and there never seemed to be anything buried in them, neither refuse nor stores. Eventually, a botanist pointed out to them that when a large tree falls over, the roots that it falls onto fold, while those that it falls away from are lifted up and take with them a large amount of soil. After hundreds of years, the wood decomposes and is returned to the soil by the normal actions of bacteria, fungi and worms. All that is left is this strange semicircular pit in the earth. It's easy to miss the bleeding obvious if you stand too close. (I must tell you about the stage magician, Ali Bongo sometime.)

This specimen was too small to demonstrate the effect, but there are plenty of fallen trees in these woods that do.

I’ve just posted yesterday’s, “The Morning After.”