Asymmetric Bay Tree Photo © Peter Y. Chou— Asymmetric Bay Tree at corner of Middlefield Road & San Antonio Road Palo Alto, CA; Traffic on October 10, 2013, 12:30 pm

There is symmetry in most trees with branches balanced on both sides but here's an exception to nature's rule and I am wondering why? On the corner of Middlefield Road and San Antonio Road in front of Jiffy Lube in Palo Alto is a Bay Tree with two branches growing parallel to each other with emptiness on the other side. Bus #35 turns at this corner on my way to Foothill College and for sixteen years I've not noticed the tree's asymmetry until now, so I stopped to ask the tree for its unusual growth. Standing at the corner I noticed more cars on San Antonio Road heading to Highway 101 than traffic on Middlefield Road. So that's why this branch grew in the direction with less noise to form the Greek word nabla ∇ first used by William Hamilton to denote the del operator for the gradient in mathematics. He chose the nabla ∇ symbol as it resembled an Egyptian harp. Amidst the heavy corner traffic, two Bay Tree branches are so close to each other hugging and kissing, playing harp music for the angels.     — Peter Y. Chou         Mountain View, 10-22-2013

Asymmetric Bay Tree at corner of Middlefield & San Antonio Roads Traffic on Middlefield Road Traffic on San Antonio Road Egyptian Harp in the shape of nabla ∇