The breakage point can be anywhere from the trunk to 5 or 6 feet out. The doomed branches seem to die slowly and decay on the parent tree, until they are sufficiently rotten to fall, blow, fragment, or be knocked off. When leaves, and in some species twigs, fall from trees they break off cleanly at a preset fracture point called an abscission zone. I wonder if branch shedding might help with de-vining. Those vines must sometimes weight a ton, especially when wet, and snag thunderstorms and hurricanes. One more thought: have you ever noticed how loaded with vines Slash Pines become? Smilax, Grapes, Poison Ivy, Virginia Creeper, and more. Again, maybe, but those untested ideas don’t rock my world. Also I’ve heard speculation that symbiotic fungi may facilitate severance.
I’ve heard other related notions, such as the lower limbs being too costly to maintain relative to their contribution to overall photosynthesis. Ain’t sayn’ it ain’t so, but then again, the party line strikes me as more intuitively easy to surmise than based on data. The standard explanation is that discarding those flammable lower branches is protection from ground fires. The trunk becomes bare below the crown as the crown rises. Such self-pruning is not limited to Slash Pines, but they are mighty good at it. Great place for pines, and for thinking about why they shed their lower limbs.
John and I botanized and photographed today at Halpatioke Park in Stuart, Florida.
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