I think its interesting to see how the trees change throughout the year , from the stark bare branches of winter and spring to the masses of summer leaves in all their different shades of green. Not forgetting the oranges, browns and yellows as summer turns to autumn.
This is the bark of the London Plane tree, Platanus x acerifolia . Its peeling bark is really attractive , and very reminiscent of camouflage clothing. .
The bark is shed in irregular pieces and exposes different bark layers. the inner bark is a pale yellowish grey, the mid bark is a greenish grey and the outer bark is mid brown.The trees can be variable in the bark colours, some are more dramatically coloured and 'patchwork looking' than others.
This is a close up of the bark showing how the different layers are exposed. Close-up it looks like map contour lines.
The upper branches of the plane tree. The branches are cut back at the beginning of winter by the local council which tends to produce a lot of small spindly branches taht get covered in leaves by teh summer.When the trees are initially cut back it looks incredibly severe, as if the trees will never recover; but they bounce back stronger than ever the following year.
Old Olive trees [Olea europaea] have very characteristic gnarly bark., As they age, they start to look like twisted old people . Some of the really old trees look as if they come to life and start moving slowly around, like Ents, when humans aren't watching. Or maybe they could be trolls or the elderly wise folk who talk in riddles in fairy tales.Their bark gives plenty of crevices for creepy crawlies ,small animals and other plants to grow. Some of the fallen black olives are just about visible here -its easier to see in the original photo
Some small succulents and a couple of other plants have taken root in some of the holes in the olive trunk. The black olives are in various stages of decomposition - they are eaten by birds etc
The sky through the olive trees branches. Olives are evergreen, so they have plenty of leaves in winter.
This is a photo of the texture of the trunk of a tall palm tree.
And this is a photo of branches of the same tree . It reminds me of a peacock's tail feathers from this angle.
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