Tree in a... tree?

My favourite thing about taking my camera everywhere and looking at everything as a potential photograph, is that it has made me more aware of my surroundings.

This is, in fact, a tree growing inside a tree stump. The current living tree is fairly large (you can just see a bit of it's root snaking out the bottom left of the old stump), so that should give you some sense of how large the old stump is. At a guess, I would say it was at least 2 feet tall. Clearly, as it decomposed it made for a rich environment for the new sapling to flourish in. I can't be certain, but I'm going to guess that the younger tree is not of the same type as the older stump. TOO COOL!

As for the picture itself, I intentionally didn't try to capture the whole tree. To get far enough back to see it all would have meant losing all the brilliant detail that was my focus. I love the bits of pale green moss or lichen that are growing on the outside of the stump, and the contrast in the colours between the new tree and old stump. I also like the contrasts on the ground, between the rich green leaves (IN JANUARY!!!) and the brown needles and leaves carpeting the ground.