Hidden Trees

Big old trees are often hidden by a lot of young saplings today.  The big old ones may have grown in an open field, or at least at the edge of a field, and then when the farmland stops being used, a new generation of young trees grows up around them.  Miles and miles of the landscape near the valley, all poor former farmland, is now growing up in such young trees, but still dotted by giant old 'wolf' trees of an earlier generation.  The result is huge old trees surrounded by young saplings.  You can tell by the wide open branches and crown of the tree that it grew in the open.  And when the leaves fall, those big old trees really stand out in the woods.

Here are three interesting big old trees, the first a very gnarled beech, the others large sugar maples.