Here is a really tortured maple staff that was next to dead. It had been apparently rubbed or eaten years ago by a mammal (big or small.) The whole core of it rotted but the successive growth kept it alive. The exposed section of the rotted core fell out in segments, leaving just the shell. It stands 70" tall and the shaft ranges in diameter from a smallish inch to inch and a half. It has a big chunky root mass and weighs in at 3#9ozs. It is a raw material that was dug up and stripped with a drawknife, so it has facets and digs from the blade. Taking this sapling basically immortalized it because death was nearly complete. (ufws379)