Excurrent Form

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]There are two very general very reductive forms a tree can take. Its form can be xcurrent or it can be decurrent. Xcurren refers to when the tree looks like a Christmas tree.

[00:00:12]There's a central trunk and branches come off at 90° everywhere and are relatively short and you have this one straight trunk. This is more typical of soft woods. Most soft woods, unless they're hit by lightning, unless they're attacked by beetles, unless something goes wrong, most soft woods, most conifers with cones and needles will have one straight trunk with branches that come off at 90°. Um, and with with eastern white pine, uh, this is this is typical. The branches will be in whs and each whirl is actually a year of vertical growth. So when you look up there, you'll see here are a whole bunch of knot scars in a ring. Here is a whole bunch of knot scars in a ring. So you will have areas that are completely clear of knots and then areas where there's knots in all directions. that whirl of branches and that that central straight uh single leader is what it's called uh is a definitive characteristic of most conifers of most softwoods. Um you know if if you were to see a uh if you were to see plywood you see the surface of plywood often plywood depending on the plywood often it's taken from soft woods. What they do is they they cut a sheet. They roll this trunk and they cut a sheet around the trunk. And you'll see a row of knots in the plywood. You'll see a row, a row, a row. You're seeing these unraveled.

[00:01:46]You're seeing this whole row, this whirl of branches unraveled. Um, and so this is a characteristic form for a soft wood. We're going to talk about a characteristic form for a hardwood.