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May 11, 2007

5.11.07

It's Mother's Day Weekend (and why do I seem to be getting all the holidays?). So write about a Matriarch.

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David: Red Fern

A peculiar pair of trees grows in the backwoods of North Carolina. They’re normal enough most of the time; roots in the ground, a trunk, branches high above. You know, the usual.

But every year, in mid-spring, these trees behave in a wholly bizarre fashion. They reach their branches toward each other, intertwining like lovers until it becomes impossible to tell which part of the canopy belongs to which tree. The effect is startlingly beautiful.

Biologists studying the phenomenon have concluded this behavior to be a unique method of pollination. Locals and tourists just call it the May tree arch.

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