As a follow up to my post about rubbing branches not welding together here is a bit about stronger branch divisions within a tree. This first photo is of a log from a cherry tree. It came from the point where the trunk divided in two. You can see the tree rings where one branch went off to the left and the other to the right.
When I split it with an axe I was able to see how the wood fibres between the branches had grown over the years.
It seems that the place where the branches diverged had for many years grown a supporting, strengthening ridge.
These layers of wood fibres between the two branches had grown up from each side and met in the middle, so they had no function as translocators of fluids within the tree. This had been left to the wood on the outside of the branches.
I never realised that.
You can learn a lot from splitting logs open, or sawing them. Dissection with a chainsaw can reveal the inner structure of trees.
This supports what I had been taught years ago: that widely forking branches are stronger than narrow forks.
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