Instant Orange Tree

Down at the toe of my Christmas stocking there was a tangerine. This is good because while I like an orange, I'm rubbish at peeling the standard model but when the skin falls of easily even with my bitten finger-nails, then I'm in.

Pulling the bottom away, this came out from between the centre of the segments. I thought it looked a like like a tiny tree.

Maybe it's just me but I think you'll find that modellers through the years have employed natural materials as the basis for miniature tress. Stuff pulled from hedges, seafoam, hydrangeas - all have been covered with flock and spongy things to give the finished item a bit of shape.

This is great and proves an important mathematical principle - fractals. The idea that a line splitting into two with each of these splitting into two and so on, results in something that looks like a tree is well known. Delve deeper into nature and the same effect occurs at ever more microscopic levels.

Hence, my tangerine centre, looks like a tree !