Now Playing: Lietta
Topic: Rural Living
Oh, this woman doesn't like the infamous Monkey Puzzle Tree. I followed her comment from one blog to her own blog and she has a post about what another writer calls the Dinosauer Tree.
Well, we have one, over 92 yrs old now and I can tell you that the writer was spot on in calling it a Dinosauer Tree. It is left over from that era it seems to me, since it is not exactly a friendly sort of tree. I've read the writer's assessment before somewhere, and was amused then, but I see it is a copyright, so I won't reprint it here. Leave it to the woman who blogged it at her blog to deal with copyright issue.
excerpt:
Ever wondered why even the most die-hard of all treehuggers won't touch this tree, not even with a barge pole? Because it's bloody lethal, that's why! Look at those sharp and stiff leaves. They last for 10 to 15 years, the little blighters. That tells you something about how tough they are. Not forgetting those cones the female trees produce, which are 6 to 12 inches long and look a bit like coconuts. It's really not wise to stand beneath a female tree when she's shedding her cones!
For reference though, here is a photo of our aged monkey puzzle tree - named such as what monkey could ever figure out how to navigate a monkey puzzle tree without serious damage to the monkey! The leaves (if you can call them that) are indeed needle sharp and will stab you when you try to pick them up. I know because I learned not to handle them when they fall off our tree - I use a rake.
Oh, a have to photo to share. This beautiful tree formation is a graceful dancer in arabesque.
Who had the imagination and know how to shape a tree into this formation? It's breathtaking. Wouldn't that be something to see each day in my own yard.
Of course, I'm going to be taken with images of ballerinas. And the amazing thing about this tree shaped into the image of a dancer is that the person got the shape and image correct! I can't tell you how many images I've come across that do not correctly capture the nuance of the dancer in motion. A foot at the wrong bend, a knee at an incorrect angle - and to a trained eye it stands out as flawed. 
