Although I've never seen anyone beat a hickory, I have a cross section of a hickory tree in which the tree has grown all around a nut. It is a very interesting cross section because it looks as though the nut grew inside the tree, but the most probable explanation is a squirrel found a hole in the tree, deposited the nut in the hole, and, over time, the tree grew around the nut in the little hole
A hole new meaning for the grain of the wood
I forgot to mention in the biosphere it was actually the trunks that broke rather than the tree falling.