Wind-Pruned Trees

Wind-Pruned Trees is an original illustration set in Falkland Islands Uplands. It lies in mid-latitudes, where the climate is subpolar oceanic — cool summers, few frosts.

Tree trunks lean and their crowns grow only on one side, streaming away like flags. The windward branches are bare; the leeward side carries all the foliage. Tussock grass blades bend in the identical direction, and low peat banks show dark exposed faces.

Why does this tree grow branches on only one side?

The tree is not bent by the wind so much as pruned by it: buds on the windward side are killed by salt spray and desiccation before they can grow, so the crown can only develop downwind. Every tree in the frame therefore points the same way, and the grass agrees. Peat forming at all requires a cool, wet, poorly drained climate where plants rot slower than they grow.

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