In article ,
Jeff Layman wrote:

Ivy behaving like a "strangler fig", eh? Can't say I've ever seen it
happening, either. It seems to me that ivy tends to grow up rather than
round (strangler figs grow down /and/ round, of course).

Right. I have seen ivy fork and rejoin, like a strangler fig, but
never enough to form a complete circuit. I have seen it distort
the growth of a tree, so I deduce that strangling a tree is (in
theory) possible a few times in a million.

I think the OP's finding of ivy under the bark was coincidental to the
bark already being damaged by some pathogen. Ivy will happily find its
way into any gap - roof tiles being a favourite. ...

Absolutely. If he could provide serious evidence of his hypothesis,
it would be publishable in an academic journal as a phenomenon new to
science.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.