Exfoliation is a term used in cosmetology to describe the shedding of dead cells on the outer layer of skin. It is also, I discovered recently, a term used by arborists and biologists to describe a tree’s shedding of the outer bark. I know from my walking in the deep woods that exfoliation is often quite beautiful, as in this white bark I photographed on a recent walk.

There is a grace and is wisdom to it, a kid of sculpture. And a white birch is good to my monochrome black and white camera.

I have