The Forest of Dancing Oaks

Who knows such growth anomalies of oaks? They move towards each other as if in dance.

Many of us know the phenomenon of the crooked forest in Poland (Krzywy Las). This one is, of course, unbeatable in terms of its uniform 90° curve at the bottom of the trunk. Although some pretend to have the ultimate solution to this occurrence, there is no conclusive evidence to support any of the ideas.

There is also something strange about the forest at the Vierseenblick lookout tower, about 270 metres above Boppard on the Rhine bend. The tip came from a reader of my blog, so I set out at the earliest opportunity to take stock.

While the crooked forest in Poland is characterised by crooked pines, the forest near the lookout tower is planted with oaks whose presumably still young trunks literally perform a dance. Anyone who looks at the pictures and can tell me where they think there are similar oak trunks that take on such bizarre shapes, thank you in advance. My guess is that the trees are about 60-100 years old. Unfortunately, I didn't take measurements there, so my calculation is only an estimate in retrospect.

You can enlarge the following pictures by clicking on them.

Strange: sometimes the trees "dance" freely, sometimes closely entwined. Possibly this elevated vantage point has an energetic vein that conjures up such anomalies. To what extent this phenomenon continues down the slopes I cannot say with absolute certainty. However, I have kept a lookout in the lower slopes - not least via the distant view from the observation tower - and have not been able to identify anything comparable. This phenomenon seems to have spread at least mainly to the level of the viewing platform.

In some places at this altitude, one can make out the slate structure of the subsoil. In the distance, one can see a large mobile phone mast, which in my view is not an explanation, as the anomalies of the trees already start at the lower level - presumably due to their age at a time when there were no mobile phone masts. That the trees only developed so holistically after the construction of the - admittedly large - radio tower seems to me personally unlikely.

View Vierseenblick, from the height of the observation tower on the Rhine bend above the town of Boppard. All around is the aforementioned forest with the bizarre oaks.

In the distance is the aforementioned radio tower, which I do not suspect of being responsible for the strange growth of the trees.

Here the observation tower, which offers a panoramic view all around.