Unusual trees

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The Whistler Tree in Portugal is the world's oldest, largest cork tree. Cork comes from a single species of oak trees. Learn about this famous cork tree!

John Henley photographed a series of beautiful and breathtaking images of the Great Dismal Swamp for our December 2011 feature "The Green Island." We published nine images in the magazine, but offer an expanded selection of 22 in this slideshow.

"Dracaena cinnabari" The crown of the tree sees multiple branches parting, but after that each branch divides along binary lines, though the frequency of this division is governed by some rule that ensures there is enough surface area for all branches to get sunlight.

"The twisted tree lives its life, while the right tree ends up as planks." "... paraphrased from the Book of Chuang Tzu, the second major text of Taoism. Taoism is a critique of the more mainstream ideals of Confucianism. In the original text the twisted tree story has less to do with “individualism” and more to do with Taoism’s rejection of duality. The twisted tree is so useless that it’s useful, because it’s the only tree left to offer shade after all the others are cut down. Ergo, the…

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11 The Most Unusual Tree Alleys in the World: rosewood alley in Brazil, bamboo forest in Kyoto, gingko trees in Tokyo, yew tree tunnel in UK, beech tree tunnel in Northern Ireland, Tunnel of Love in Ukraine, fig tree tunnel in Australia, palm alley in Sri Lanka, cypress tunnel in US, oak alleys in US, baobab alleys in Madagascar

These are ten of the worlds most amazing and unusual leaves and some of them look like they have come from an alien planet...