The crookedwood tree

One of my favorite trees is the crookedwood, Lyonia Ferruginea,  Rusty Lyonia, also sometimes known as stagger bush.  I had to do some research to discover the proper name.  ( I had always wrongly called it devilwood).  My friend Bruce had tried to (helpfully) correct me so I looked it up.

The tree -  is in a word beautifully graceful.  It curves and flows in the most amazing shapes that can only be found in the random rhythms of the natural world.  Images of the tree often confuse the eye.

Crookedwood is at home in the scrub. I took all of the pictures here in the Ocala National Forest which is near my home in Ocala, (FL).  

The literature indicates that the crookedwood tree reaches 10 to 20 feet so this is a full grown tree.

It is the growing habit of this ballet dancer of the forest that fascinates me.  Graceful.  Crookedwood tree trunks are a valued forest product in the fake plant industry.  Trunks are harvested at 4 to 6 feet long then wired up with plastic leaves.   The trunks can't be massed produced so crookedwood cutting has become a resource extraction industry.    Selective cutting probably has minimal ecosystem damage

What forces of nature guide the pattern or the path?  Random?  Functional design?  Who knows?  Again I wonder if it's a little strange that I have a fixation with the lowly lyonia.  If you took a hike with me I am pretty sure I could make you understand.