Many of these variations are
slight and subtle; the buttress
asymmetry of the tree pictured
above was formed as a consequence of the gentle slope
upon which it stood during the
growing phase of its life. The
tree provides us with a permanent record of that period; the
slope may erode or disappear
but the asymmetry within the
tree remains, leaving us with
a visual clue as to what has
gone before.
The picture on the next page
is from a park in Crawley,
England. Here the asymmetry
of the buttresses does not
fit with the landscape. The
sloping roots to the left conform to the gentle fall of the
land in that direction, but the
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