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This is an amazing sight, a Stone Pine (Pinus pinea) at Kew Gardens in London. The limb had become so long and heavy that it was probably unable to support itself and now it is permanently supported by a steel A frame. Kew was and to some extent still is the world centre for tree collecting/naming/researching, and according to Kew this tree was brought to Kew but sat in a pot before planting for so long (about 2 years) that the eventual form of the tree 50 years later as we see it now became fixed by the shape of the potted tree. If someone had rotated the pot every few weeks the tree could now be 20 metres straight up in the air. We’ll never know, it is just good that it has been saved by this clever steel frame.

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