Today, we're harvesting short Texas mountain laurels - ones that are 3 and 4 feet tall. Most dug really nicely, but this one pulled right out of the ground. The folliage looks healthy, doesn't it? Turn it upside down to get a good look and the roots and you see its problem - there are virtually NO ROOTS! 
Two years ago the mountain laurels in this field were an average of 6 feet tall - then Hurricane Dolly paid us a visit. Heavy winds battered the trees for hours and nearly half of this field died. The remainder looked shabby and a bit necrotic. Every time we had strong winds, the remaining trees stressed. And Harlingen has strong winds on a pretty regular basis. We decided a heavy pruning might help. It's now been 20 months since the hurricane and most of this field have recovered nicely. - but occassionally, we come across one like this. I still can't imagine how that root system has been supporting this fairly decent looking little tree. Go figure.
We were happy to see that after harvesting 40, this was the only one with this problem!
Goes to show you never know what you'll find in nature. Weird isn't it?
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