Drunken trees, tilted trees, or a drunken forest, is a stand of trees displaced from their normal vertical alignment. This most commonly occurs in northern subarctic taiga forests of Black Spruce (Picea mariana) under which discontinuous permafrost or ice wedges have melted, causing trees to tilt at various angles. Tilted trees may also be caused by frost heaving, and subsequent palsa development, hummocks, earthflows, forested active rock glaciers, landslides, or earthquakes. In stands of spruce trees of equal age that germinated in the permafrost active later after a fire, tilting begins when the trees are 50 to 100 years old, suggesting that surface heaving from new permafrost aggradation can also create drunken forests. Permafrost, which is soil (or rock) that remains below 0 °C for at least two consecutive years, forms a solid matrix in soil which can extend to a depth of hundreds of meters. The permafrost prevents trees from developing deep root systems; for example, the Black Spruce that has adapted to permafrost soils has no significant taproot.

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