I recently visited this protected area along the Housatonic River in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, called Housatonic Flats. The area is a floodplain. Here, trees and other plants do not just survive, but thrive, when the river overflows its banks. This tree is at the edge of the riverbank, and it apparently toppled when the eroding bank could no longer support it. I marvel at how this tree has adapted to being partially uprooted and how it continues to put out new growth.

Although I don’t often come across a tree with a horizontal trunk and vertical branches, that is not the reason I decided to make the photograph. Instead, I was intrigued by the pattern of lines made by the trunk and its branches, and I thought that they made an interesting design.