Naturally Speaking
Share
Tweet
Photo courtesy of Jerry Davis
This white oak has a very different gestalt compared to an American elm.
We come to recognize many plants, animals, even individuals by their general appearance. Lumping characters together in our minds, this general appearance often works quite well.
Gestalt is the term for these physical and biological configurations of many elements unified as a whole. If it looks like a duck or if it looks like an elm tree, chances are good that it is a duck, or an American elm.
Even with some of the characters removed, such as leaves on a deciduous elm or a dead elm, it still can look enough like an elm and help in identifying the tree as a dead elm tree.
Elms particula...
For access to this article please
sign in or
subscribe.
