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Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/171276
abrupt verticality of the roots to the right suggest a sharp change in level, possibly a ditch, which is at odds with the topography on the ground. Further investigation showed that the rising land to the right is indeed 1950s landfill which has obliterated all that had gone before, except the evidence preserved within the root buttresses of the adjacent trees. Buttress asymmetry can also be an indicator of much older features. In the picture on the facing page the asymmetry is pronounced; to the right the buttress flare is gentle and elongated, reflecting the gentle fall of the land away from the tree. But even though the land to the left is rising, the 36 buttress morphology does not reflect that; the roots here are plunging and vertical which is indicative of a pronounced change in level. had reached maturity. These features are all around us—and here we've only had room to briefly dwell on buttresses—but I believe that The tree straddles the a broader understanding of remains of a bank to the visual tree history has much right and the edge of a ditch to offer. It tells us about a edge to the left, the latter tree's past and the place in indicated by the vertical but- which it has grown. Much of tresses roots and providing this language still remains a clue to the original steep- obscure and unrecorded but ness of its sides. The tree is an understanding of it can screaming out to us what the help date and order events ground is only whispering, that have occurred to trees of the existence of a largely and the ground around them. eroded woodland boundary But perhaps most importantbank and ditch, the features ly, it has the potential to give of which can be very old but trees a more central role also very difficult to date. in contextual site interpretaHere the buttress morpholo- tion; often, in that endeavour, gy tells us that the ditch and arboriculturists need all the bank existed before the tree help they can get. City Trees