This is what happens when you plant trees in a very windy place, where the winds blow 24/7 all year ‘round. The trees cannot win that war, yet these managed to survive by bending and twisting to the unrelenting wind.
This is Slope Point. It is the southernmost tip on New Zealand's South Island. The airstreams loop the vast circumpolar Southern Ocean unobstructed for 2000 miles and then they smash into land. Here. They are so persistent and so violent that the trees are perpetually warped and twisted into these crooked, windswept shapes.
Under natural conditions, tree seeds would never get past the sprout stage here, but New Zealand sheep farmers planted saplings to give their sheep a bit of shelter from the wind. Read about Slope Point and see more pictures of its trees at Kuriositas. -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: Flickr user Anita Gould)