2/3/2005: Sign-swallowing trees
 

http://cellar.org/2004/signswallowingtrees.jpg

axlrosen via Boing Boing finds these trees in Spain which have swallowed the taxi stand signs tacked to them thirty years ago.

It lends much to think about. We could mention the basic entropy of the universe. Or the ways that plants consume even things they don't absorb, or how mother nature gets her revenge in the end. Or we could just say hey neat, the bark almost covers them now.

full story, in Spanish

i saw something like this in my parents yard when they were selling the house 2 years ago. as a kid i built the inevitable treehouses and tied ropes around some branches. i even built a most excellent rope bridge between two of the larger trees. that was all about 20 years ago. the ropes decayed and fell away, most of the treehouses were scrapped, but walking around memory lane i came upon their remains. the ropes from the rope bridge were still visible in some spots on the trees - the tree had grown around the rope and preserved it. the same had happened with some 2x4's from the tree house remains.

thanks for triggering the memories UT.

I've seen the same thing done with chain-link fence. Very science-fiction like. The tree oozes through the fence (at a very slow rate).

It happens with power lines, too. There are a couple of power lines in my neighborhood with blocks of wood hanging on them - the branch was cut above and below the line, leaving a short log hanging there.

After we bought our house, I cleaned up the jungle in the back yard. I cut one small tree whose trunk went through the chain link fence. As a sapling, the tree must have grown through a single open link. As an eight inch diameter trunk, it went through/around a couple of the links. I cut it on either side of the fence, and now there is no trace of the tree but a hunk of wood hanging from my fence.

Which you should carve into something decorative. ;)

Much to the surprise of a chainsaw operator, some friends of mine left a pipe or rod of some kind nestled in a notch of an oak tree that was in their backyard. (This is the killer baby carriage family. Which reminds me, if tonight doesn't suck, I'll try to work on another of those "My Friend's Father Absolutely True Adventure Stories."

Ya know what I like?? "...basic entropy of the universe".

V. cool.

I don't know, it looks like those signs are maybe being pooped out of the trees instead of being sucked in...

I'd love to see a time-lapse photography sequence of this happening... time-lapse footage of plants growing is freaky.

Trees will eat anything.....including each other and their young. The only reason we survive is Mother Nature moves slowly most of the time. :unsure:

I just got around to taking this picture today of a tree eating a speed limit sign right up the street from my house. The neighborhood has been here for about 40 years and I'm guessing the sign was tacked to a sapling nearly that long ago.

Keeping an eye on you. :eyeball:

I was cuttin down an oak tree a few years ago , i had topped it out and had the trunk (3-4 feet ) cut most of the way thru when all the sudden my chain saw chain started shooting sparks !!!!! I changed the chain and cut all around the offending spot and YANKED the trunk down with my F350 work truck . After it was down i found the remains of a "T" post in the center of the tree , as in the fucktards that owned the place had put a hard wood sapling in the ground and wired a "T" post to it to keep it streight , and fucking LEFT IT there !!!! AHHHHHHHH :(

:D is this the reason for your name ;)

Took me a while to find this thread. I thought we had another one with bikes swallowed by trees, and one with a tree growing through a pickup truck.

Anyway, here's a picture I just came across. It's pretty amazing. If it weren't for the tree, it almost looks like you could start this up and go for a ride.

This thread works just as well, glatt. Not being familiar with that kind of tree, I wonder how long that took? :confused:

The bike looks like a '70s, so I imagine it wouldn't have been abandoned until the '80s.

photoshop?
 

70's bike. Good guess. It's one of those Yamaha 650 clones of the British Bikes like BSA and Triumph. Palmettos indicate a tropical/subtropical environment i.e., lots and lots of rain and heat. Even if they cleaned up the bike for the photo, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the leather would look pretty bad and a lot more rust everywhere after 20+ years in the jungle? Something about the light on the bike vs. the ambient light in the photo makes it look Photoshopped to me--although expertly done. There are those photoshop pranksters that love to get a spot-on, fool the eye photo and see if they can get away with it. Then again, maybe not. Maybe someone spent a lot of time cleaning and making it look good, although if they did, there's hardly a footprint to be seen around the tree.

lots of argument about it, too.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=42952

I'd probably bet that this is the reason for his name...

http://www.musichallsf.com/artist_pages/buckethead.jpg

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e8...w-tacoma-m.jpg

http://it.geocities.com/axl_rose84/Band/buckethead.jpg

I don't think so. The quality of those 70's Jap bikes was superb. I had a couple a Yamahas during that time and they were designed and built to live outside.

Rust is not prevalent because there is little to rust, fenders and trim are stainless steel. The exhaust and chain guard are chromed steel with rust showing where the chrome has been damaged and the rust got a foothold. But even there, the rust has to eat it's way through the steel and not run along the steel separating the chrome like todays flash chrome. Sign of a good copper/nickel/chrome plating job.

The paint will stand up for decades if it's intact and they didn't gouge any of the fasteners through to the steel, on the tank or frame The rest of the metal is aluminum, except the chain, sprocket and intake which are rusted.

The climate looks tropical, but certainly not jungle with those manicured surroundings and being under the tree it may have been shaded from a lot of direct Sun. Sunlight would fade the seat, and time alone will make it brittle, but if you don't touch it, it won't come apart on it's own. The seams are heat welded rather than stitched for that reason.

There are Jap bikes of that vintage in the PA woods is the same condition and they have ice and snow to contend with. Of course PA trees don't grow that fast. :lol:
It certainly could be photoshoped but I'm saying the bike's condition isn't proof.

True. I had a couple of 650 Triumphs and a BSA Lightning in the 70's, and, after turning up my nose at the Japanese bikes for so long, I finally got a Yamaha clone like my buddy's because, unlike the Brit bikes, they didn't leak oil everywhere and didn't have Lucas electrics. No question about it, the Yamaha was superior in every way save for snob appeal.

Ah yes, Lucas....The Prince of Darkness. :lol2:

Is that a crescent wrench on the seat, with red plastic on handle?

Ha. Ha.

It's only Darkness for short time...until they catch fire.