This is a great example of what trees can look like in areas which have been deforested a long time ago, and the trees have since grown back.
This tree was cut down to a stump long ago, and has since regrown – but in a fairly unusual way. The tree has put up multiple new trunks from the stump, where previously there was only one.
This type of regrowth is called coppicing, and once you know what it looks like, you’ll spot it all the time throughout the bushland of the Victorian Goldfields.
Dense areas of coppiced trees can be a good indication that a place which seems quiet and isolated today was once a hive of activity, with trees being cleared and used for the construction of things like buildings, windlasses, poppet heads, tramways, for timber supports in underground mines, or even just for firewood.