Look inside a tree trunk

By Aaron Horrell

This photo shows a rare look inside the trunk of a tree. The tree was cut in June this year during a timber harvest. There was no external evidence that this tree was hollow.

I was drawn to the stump because I wanted to see why it was cut off 5 feet high. I noticed the stump was hollow and looked inside. At first I did not recognize the woven wire fence with two steeples still protruding inward into the rotted-out space.

Many years ago someone had steepled a fence directly into the tree. The tree did not die, but instead grew over it. As years passed, the center of the tree rotted out, decomposed and fell inside the tree to the ground, leaving the tree hollow yet unavailable for animals to use as shelter.

I searched the forest around the stump for evidence of an old rusty fence, but found none. The tree was a sweet gum. It was 30 inches across the stump in one direction and 26 inches in the opposite direction. I guessed that the sweet gum tree was close to 90 years old when it was cut.