Bill's Botanical Forays

Today, I found something really fascinating. It was a tree which one of its branches grafted back on to itself without human intervention. The technical name for this phenomenon is inosculation, but I call it backwards-grafting.  It can also happen when two trees of the same species touch each other and over time naturally grow into each other. In this case, it is also is called conjoining. Inosculation can be encouraged artificially. Some people have succeeded in making ladders and interesting looking lattice work.

The tree was an American beech tree (Fagus grandifolia Ehrh.) and it is located next to the road which leads to Scout Camp 1. I tried to take pictures from various angles to show what this looks like.