HAWAIIAN LAVA TREE

It's Mono Monday and the theme is "shape."
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If you've been to the "Big Island" of Hawaii you've likely looked for the black sand beaches after, of course, you looked down the throat of the local volcano.  Not far from Volcano National Park is the village of Pāhoa and just outside that there's a forest of "lava trees."
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Actually, the shape is quite unmistakable once you've seen one.  They were formed when lava flowed down from the volcano and buried trees located there.  The lava is hot...the tree is cool.  The cool tree caused the very hot liquid lava to congeal and collect around the outside of the tree's trunk.  But even though cooled, the lava was still hot enough to start the tree on fire.  Eventually, the tree was completely burned out and only the skeleton of the lava surrounding it was left with a hole in the middle where the tree trunk used to be.....hence they were called lava trees.  And being well insulated, the lava tree remained while the rest of the very hot lava continued its journey to the sea.   
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They stand in large bunches and the "tree" skeletons look like tree trunks...where the tree trunks used to be.  Thus we have a lava tree forest.
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BEST IN LARGE.