Saw a huge old oak in Savannah with some wild growth patterns

I was down in Savannah, Georgia for a family thing and walked through one of the historic squares. There's this massive live oak, must be over 200 years old. The main thing I noticed was how the lower limbs had grown almost straight down into the ground, like they were trying to root again. They'd formed these big, gnarly arches you could walk under. I've never seen a tree manage its own weight like that. Has anyone else worked on a tree with limbs that basically turned into secondary trunks?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_wyatt2d agoTop Commenter

It's like the tree built its own flying buttresses. Makes you wonder if it's a response to the soft, wet ground down there.

the_alice2d ago

Nature's engineering is wild, saw similar roots on a cypress in a swamp once.

hollyl252d agoMost Upvoted

Those roots are basically the tree's way of saying it doesn't trust the local soil contractor. It saw the swampy foundation and decided to bring its own support beams. Nature's version of a bad Yelp review.