The tree was massive. Wider than multiple human arm-lengths, the 300-500 year old Live Oak in Bulow Creek State Park – known as the Fairchild Oak – stretched its branches high and wide at the edge of a small, grassy clearing. One particular branch, covered in fern epiphytes, had extended so far from the trunk of the tree that it briefly grew along the ground before reaching up into the air once more. Moreover, some of the other boughs looked like tree trunks themselves! I felt a distinct sense of awe as I gazed up the length of the tree’s gnarled bark.

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