As we set out from the house one of the first things we saw was this tree with 'lumps' in it. We speculated about whether this was mistletoe, but I was pretty sure that had green leaves and white berrys. Mistletoe was the state flower of Oklahoma when I was growing up, but it seems some people want it to be an 'Oklahoma rose' instead. Next thing you know they'll be wanting to ditch the scissor-tailed flycatcher, our state bird. These lumps, however, just looked to be a bunch of twigs. Vivien thought it was some kind of nest, but I wasn't sure I wanted to see what would come out of those big ones.
This is apparently an example of Witches' Broom, a deformity caused by many shoots growing from the same point. Wikipedia seems uncertain as to the specific cause of this, but the lumps do serve a useful purpose for some widelife, providing them with nests, so Vivien was right on that.
Funny how people are so ready to name things as supernatural. I don't think they look at all like a broom, but maybe brooms were shaped differently in the past.
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