Elephant Tree

The Royal gardens in Potsdam are an amazing collection of unrelated things, spread out in a way that lets the visitor see something new and interesting every few minutes while walking around. While most of these decorations are buildings, one harder to maintain example sticks out. The elephant tree. 

The Elefantenbaum (literally the elephant tree) is a weeping beech that is forced into the shape of an elephant by gardeners using wire and strategic trimming. The current one is around 70 years old, but a similar tree has stood in that area since the 18 century, when it was first commissioned by the king. 

The tree is strongly elephant shaped in summer, when it's leaves fill in the gaps, but is also interesting in the winter when the branches become visible and show how it is made to grow.