First look at physical copies of my book

"Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring: To Rule the Fate of Many" -- Chapter 7

On the Great River with the Fellowship -- FR 2.ix.382

Crown Shyness and the Fastness of Southern Mirkwood (FR 2.vi.351)

There is a phenomenon observed among trees called, among other things, "crown shyness." As the picture below shows, some trees will grow in a way that is not yet understood, but which results in the crowns of the trees giving each other room, growing to use the space available without encroaching on each other. It struck me this morning that we see the very opposite in Haldir's description of the trees in Southern Mirkwood, and he certainly seems to regard it as a sign that not all is well there.

‘There lies the fastness of Southern Mirkwood,’ said Haldir. ‘It is clad in a forest of dark fir, where the trees strive one against another and their branches rot and wither.

(FR 2.vi.351)

As Walter S. Judd and Graham A. Judd remark in their 2017 book, Flora of Middle-earth, p. 152: "under Sauron's evil influence the trees had become selfish, the forest perverted, in striking contrast to the forests of Lothlórien...."

Tolkien was knowledgeable about trees and quite observant, as his descriptions of the natural world make clear. While I have no idea whether he was aware of this phenomenon, first remarked on by scientists in the 1920s, he could have noticed it himself. I have to wonder.

 

(Dag Peak, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

"Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring: To Rule the Fate of Many" -- Chapter 6