A blue whale is 30 meters, 98 feet, long. The green whale in the southwest corner of our property is longer than that, 31 meters, 103 feet, from where it was cut to the tip of the longest branch. Add the height of the stump, the upper branches which broke off when the tree fell, and the roots below ground, and the green whale resting in the corner of our property is a giant compared to the magnificent blue whales, a giant no Greenpeace film crew will ever want to document.

At one time, these branches were a hundred feet in the sky, where they waved in the wind and rested the feet of many a weary bird.

The green whale is now the home to a myriad of green plants, this fern included. They are to fallen trees what barnacles are to blue whales. Only beached trees don’t rub their skin on gravelly ocean floors to remove their green barnacles.