Pines

I counted the pine trees close to the road on my walk the other day. There's 34 mature specimens in short section of about five or six hundred metres of Launching Place Rd.

The photo shows the biggest of them all perhaps. It doesn't look massive in the photo, but it is. Note the two trunks at the base. I think they call that bifolate, and it's inevitable that one half will fall one day, as the tree grows thicker and the bark of the two trunks grows toward each of the other creating an outward force that increases with time. As the trunks go up they divide further and high up this tree has eight trunks of substantial size all thrusting skywards and competing for light. There's another couple of big pines behind it which have had the bottom limbs removed, and have ivy growing up the trunks.  

I once had no time for radiata pines as trees but now I see them as things of great beauty with their dark bark, rich green needle foliage, and imposing stature. As I get older things looking more and more beautiful.