Mutant Madeira

 Oh, I forgot to post this when I was going on about the Pride of Madeira taking over our front yard. When I was weeding, I noticed this weird thing, can you spot it?

 It has a pretty small stem, especially given the size of the thing it's supporting. It's about the size of my two hands side by side. We looked it up and it turns out that this is pretty rare, it's called fasciation. Basically when the stem is growing, something intervenes in the usual process of growth (can be bacteria, virus, etc) and causes ribbon like growth instead of the regular tunnel form. How weird huh?

My husband said it reminded him of a Dr. Seuss tree. I think he's onto something there. It looks highly improbable. Hey, at least it managed to grow some flowers.