Today’s Disturbing Biological Oddity

And you say, what’s so odd or disturbing about buds on a tree? It’s spring, after all. Only this: These buds, and hundreds more, are on branches which have been severed from their tree since October. These branches have been dead for months.

So you know what this means, don’t you. Yes:

ZOMG ZOMBIE TREE RUN

You have been warned. Zombie tree is coming for you! Slowly.

36 Comments on “Today’s Disturbing Biological Oddity”

  1. Well, that made me spit orange Kool-Aid out my nose! I needed a good laugh after the day I’ve had today.

    (BTW, you do know that trees set their buds in the fall for the following spring?)

  2. I had the same thing happen to some witch hazel that I pruned one winter, and they budded in the spring. I’m sure there is a good scientific explanation for it. Or a miracle.

  3. What kind of tree is it? Can I graft or plant zombie tree, can I?

    (no really, there’s no nefarious plan here, look away, nothing to see)

  4. They look like …
    No!
    Yes.
    They look a lot like…
    They Are Pussy Willows!
    OMG
    Zombie Pussy Willows demanding Bacon!
    What will we do?what will we do watwilwedoesohnoeswatwill…
    Ahaaaghe

    Nice Bacon, kitty
    nice
    –ml

  5. An interesting conceit, that of zombie plants, but of course parts of plants often aren’t smart enough to know they’re dead for a long time after they’ve been severed, and that can be on a scale of months when the temperature is low, or when the base of the part is in water.

  6. Now I’ve got the idea of a bad Tolkien/Romero crossover: Night of the Living Dead Ents.

  7. little do you know about dead.
    severed from their original tree?
    HAH!!

    but I do feel yet another short story coming on

  8. you know
    what we REALLY needed here was a back channel way to reach your daughter.
    so that she could slowly start moving the branches closer to the tree that they were cut from.

    bwhqahahahahah

    /cue very slow, low zombie moan

  9. You fools. Robin Hobb warned you all in her Soldier’s Son trilogy, but would you listen? No.

  10. @9 – I can hear the theme music now – a little Mancini – “dead Ent, dead Ent, dead Ent dead Ent dead Ent dead Ent dead ENT! de-e-e-ead Ent.”

  11. Stick ’em in pots full of soil, let them root and then sell them on, small money making opportunity.

    Seriously, willows will easily root on from even long severed branches. In this case the branches were all safely shut down for the winter, full of the stuff that primes the rest of the tree in spring before they got cut off.

  12. @ #9 – for some reason, I LOLed. That would be an awesome movie.
    Now, all we need is someone to make the fake trailer and put it on Reddit.

  13. Quit using Stephen King’s bag of tricks to avoid housework – you still have to clean the yard.

  14. Persephone’s Revenge.
    Or would that be Orpheus’ Revenge?

    Have to think about that one…
    Lauretta

    PS Y’all are twisted. I like that. But then you read Scalzi. Or – in John’s case – write Scalzi.

  15. I once got a load of catalpa wood for the firewood pile and found, come spring, that the pieces in contact with the soil had set roots. It is not good firewood but it is a determined wood.

  16. Lay on, Macmillan, lay on!

    I shall.

    * * *

    Know you not that Scalzi cannot be killed by any fan of woman born? Nor that his reign shall not end until the dead trees of Birnham Wood arise and walk outside his castle?

    This message brought to you by Birnham Wood LLP, a law partnership between corporations, and delivered to you in triplicate

  17. Trees are fascinating: the creatures and things that grow on them, in them, under them, from their bones, make them a home or a vine-victim ripe for strangling… it never stops until every bit of the tree is gone. Each one is an ecosystem. They can also be quite freaky at times, . (warning for icky picture)

  18. “Know you not that Scalzi cannot be killed by any fan of woman born? Nor that his reign shall not end until the dead trees of Birnham Wood arise and walk outside his castle?”

    Oh good, I was HOPING there would be Zombie Macbeth comments.

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