From My Nature Journal: Healing Trees and Living Stumps

Just a half-mile walk up Parker Road from our Coupeville, Washington home is a gem of an attraction gifted to the region by a generous neighbor, the Price Sculpture Forest. A sixteen-acre parcel that had originally been slated for development, it was put under a conservation easement several years ago and a lovely sculpture park developed in its place, opening to the public free of charge in 2021. Trails lead visitors past numerous marvelous sculptures by various U.S. and foreign artists, complete with QR codes that bring detailed information to our phones, including recorded commentary by many of the sculptors themselves. All pieces are placed in such a way that another cannot be seen while in another’s viewing area. Gail and I often take visitors here; even our young grandchildren never tire of visiting. They all seem to have the same favorite, too, which will go unidentified here; suffice it to say it usually takes first-timers by surprise as they come around a bend in the trail. The sculpture forest has even prompted some of our grands from time to time while visiting to create natural sculptures on a small trail on our own little wooded acre.

The uniqueness and, for me, truer beauty of the attraction, however, is the natural setting in which it lies: note that it is not titled a sculpture park, like so many others, but a sculpture forest. Towering Douglas firs, western red cedars and western hemlocks (the Washington State Tree) surround the sightseer as they walk, drawing the eyes not only out but to the heavens. What is extra special to any naturalist, though, is that the trails lead the saunterer by unique natural features that are also intentionally highlighted (though not interpreted like the sculptures, my only disappointment!) – rarer trees such as the Pacific Yew, native understory, a tall fir with an eagle aerie, large sword fern groves, beautifully blooming (when in season) Coastal Rhododendrons (the Washington State Flower), and massive stumps from giant old growth logged out in the 1800’s. Oh, and several living stumps.

Living stumps? Yes. There are actually several in the sculpture forest if one pays attention. The first and easiest to see is just off the parking lot inside the trail’s entry. It caught my eye upon my very first visit and I had to do a double take, even said to Gail, “Look at this stump! It seems to have healed completely over and the bark even looks fresh. What in the world?” I looked it up when I got home and, sure enough, though rare, it’s a thing. 

As you know, when a single-stemmed plant is cut, even a tree, the plant usually dies. Whether cultivated tulips or daffodils or wild daisies or yarrows, cut them to bring them inside for a table bouquet and the original plant will shrivel and dry, eventually decomposing and sending its nourishment back into the ground. The same is true of trees, though their remnants decompose much more slowly. Now, of course some root systems of deciduous species are vigorous enough that a tree will push up what are called suckers, though they are not suckers at all, just the tree trying to hold on to life. Suckers can grow to become trees in their own right and live for decades more. And though such species as maples and willows can do this fairly often, the cut trunk never heals. But there’s something in conifers where a stump can occasionally heal given the right conditions. 

As I’ve written before on this blog, conifers have shallow root systems that intertwine with those of other nearby trees, even of differing species, essentially holding each other up through tempestuous winds. (A sermon there, for sure!) It’s one reason why one is more likely to see a wild and live conifer broken by the wind than uprooted by it, unless it’s a loner on someone’s city lawn. On rare occasions, two nearby trees of the same conifer species will not only entwine roots but some will actually graft to each other. Only when this happens can the healing actions in a live tree be shared with a cut one nearby, and even then it doesn’t happen frequently. 

When a healthy tree of any species is itself wounded – say, a storm takes a big branch off your maple or an arborist prunes your fruit tree – the tree’s healing mechanisms go into action. Increased sap is sent to the spot. In the healthiest trees, something called a callus grows over the wound looking like young, smooth bark and sealing it from destructive elements. And the tree stays healthy. 

All living stumps have a vigorous sister tree growing quite near that, through their grafted roots, initiated the healing process. With this particular specimen in the Price Sculpture Forest, a tree was cut years ago. (How long? I’d like to know!). A nearby tree with which it had grafted some of its roots rushed sap to the wound. (Conifers have an especially good resin for healing – think pine tar from which amber is formed or turpentine made – so good that even humans have used it for healing purposes for millennia.) This pungent resin helps prevent the entry of pathogens and disease, and a callus eventually covered it. The system stayed healthy and vigorous and, finally, bark formed, as you can see in the photo. Voila! A living stump! The cut tree’s stump not only stays alive but some of its roots now even draw water and mineral nourishment to the sister tree, strengthening the system further.  

Certain species of tree show this marvel more often than others, and one of these is the Douglas fir. The three examples I’ve seen in the Price Sculpture Forest are all Doug Firs, and just yesterday I found another live stump of the same species while walking a mile further east on Parker Road; it was larger but covered with thick moss and beginning some serious decomposition. Did it finally die? Perhaps. But there was not a healthy sister tree nearby either. The only other live stump I’ve seen in as good and ‘alive’ a condition as the first I saw there in the sculpture forest is one I came across last summer along the Rogue River Gorge in southern Oregon while visiting that area with friends. It even had an interpretive sign. 

Now, crazily, even after a good bit of research, I still have not discovered a common name for this phenomenon, and, in my humble opinion (which is sometimes not so humble), such a thing should definitely have a name worthy of it! One very dry article called it ‘a graft and callus.’ Another simply referred to it by the action that was taking place, ‘hydrological coupling.’ How utterly disappointing! The thing seems to me a minor miracle! Even trees can be meant for healing in community? Marvelous! And so our nearby sculpture forest is a good place for this minor miracle, as a living stump is one of God’s cooler sculptures! 

Jesus is prophesied in the Bible as a shoot that will grow from a stump, the line of King David, and has served as one “…who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Followers of Jesus are intended to be agents of this same kind of healing and mercy by demonstrating God’s love and grace to all people through acts of kindness, forgiveness and prayer. The Bible even speaks of a tree that exists for the purpose of the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:1-2). How we need all three of these today – Jesus, Christians who live like Christians, and a tree that might heal the nations.

~~ RGM, February 25, 2025