There’s a popular idea doing the rounds on Social Media that trees keep their distance from one another on purpose, like polite neighbours respecting personal space. It’s a lovely thought, but the real reason for those strange canopy gaps, known as Crown Shyness, is far more down-to-earth. I admit to leaning towards the magical and mystical but I can’t agree to the notion of arboreal etiquette.
Trees don’t agree to anything. They simply get knocked about.
In certain species, especially in breezy forests, the outer branches of neighbouring trees repeatedly hit each other in the wind. Those tender tips at the edge of the crown are the most easily damaged, so over time the tree naturally grows less in that direction. It isn’t a truce. It’s more like years of minor collisions and scraped knuckles, followed by sensible avoidance.
There are other theories floating around, but there’s little evidence for those. The best-supported explanation is mechanical abrasion: the crowns prune themselves where they keep getting smacked. Then phototropism takes over, and the tree grows where the light is, not where the injuries keep happening.
So those mosaic-like patterns in the canopy aren’t signs of plant etiquette. They’re the scars and consequences of a lifelong buffeting. Beautiful, yes—but not magical, not deliberate, and not polite.
Sometimes nature’s elegance comes from something as unromantic as years of being hit in the wind.