I came across this on my midday walk, but it looks a bit more ‘weird’ in real life……..

The tree on the right is one of those cultivated ones, with a nice straight stem, and an almost completely spherical crown. They are the dream of every gardener, because they tend to stay that shape. Seemingly, there aren’t any downsides to this type of engineering in gardening, or are there?

The plant on the left has the exact same type of leaves, which suggests it is a simiilar type, maybe even the same plant. And the fact that these plants only grow right at the base of these threes and nowhere on the rest of the road reinforces the idea that it is one and the same plant. 

But there, the similarity ends: where the tree grows controlled, it is as if the lifeforce the breeders tried to contain finds its escape in the plant on the left: it grows abundantly, and without bounds! Also, it has inch long thorns that can seriously wound any pedestrian who is not careful enough to avoid them. The same thorns do not show on the tree, or only in sizes of a few millimeters.

It’s like the ‘bad’ aspects the breeders tried to breed out come back amplified in the offspring that grows from the roots of the trees. Gets you thinking, huh?

Love your bad bits….

Dre’