Big Trees have little Trees . . . . .

    Great trees have little trees upon their backs to bite 'em,
    And little trees have lesser trees, and so ad infinitum.
    And the great trees themselves, in turn, have greater trees to go on,
    While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
 
Adapted from the work of the Victorian mathematician, Augustus De Morgan
 
This little rowan has been growing out of the crown of an ancient collapsing gean for as long as I can remember, probably more than twenty years, and it has remained at the sensible height of about four foot for all that time. The leading stem of the gean has long since folded over so a significant portion of it rests on the ground in a pose that makes it virtually un-Blippable, though I might try with the fish-eye some time. At present, it is covered in blossom, a trait that is common in organisms that sense their impending doom and so feel the urgent need to procreate. One of the stock questions on the British radio programme, “Gardeners’ Question Time” is, “How to I make my such-and-such a plant flower?” The answer is always the same, “Stop feeding it.” In particular, cut the nitrogen rations necessary to promote growth. Having said that, the rowan, whose growth is stunted like that of a chain-smoking schoolboy, obviously thinks that it hasn’t grown up yet and so is far too young to start on the heady task of breeding.