treeblog - All posts tagged: spring

A European larch (Larix decidua) female flower. The larch roses have arrived later than they did last year, but they were out in force last weekend when I went to check on the progress of the Set A grey alders.

A mature birch polypore a.k.a. razor strop (Piptoporus betulinus) bracket on a fallen downy birch (Betula pubescens). Razor strop fruiting bodies are annual; this is one of 2009’s.

A gnarly, lichen-encrusted rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) twig with unfurling leaves.

A pair of sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) seedlings growing in the fork of a mature sycamore.

An early spring wander (21st March 2010) (Part One)

A proliferation of small fungal brackets on a dead Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). They look like turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) - or at least something in that genus - but my encyclopaedia of fungi says that T. versicolor is only found on broad-leaved species. Is that right? Can anyone set us straight in the comments?

The first wood on Whitwell Moor, home to the twin-stemmed beech and rotting Scots pine.

A weak sun shines through the peeling, papery bark of a young downy birch (Betula pubescens).

Goat willows (Salix caprea) are currently putting out their furry catkins. They are dioecious trees – individuals are either male or female – and both sexes produce catkins. At this early stage in their development, I’m not sure whether these catkins are ♀ or ♂.

Alder (Alnus glutinosa) catkins. The long ones in the centre of the photo are the males; these will extend and become golden in colour before they shed their pollen, at which point they will resemble male hazel catkins. The ruby-red, rugby ball-shaped immature female catkins (above the males in this photo) will develop into hard, woody, seed-bearing ‘cones’.

Here they are: the mature female catkins. The three in this photograph would have been at the same stage as those in the previous photo at this time last spring. The cones persist on the tree through winter, lending the leafless alder a distinctive silhouette.

A female hazel (Corylus avellana) flower peeking between two pairs of male catkins.

Just look at all those catkins! There’s even another female flower at the top of the photo! Hazels are amazing at this time of year.

How’s this for a spot of genius? An ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) seen above and below ground simultaneously!

BudWatch (21st March 2010)

I went out for a wander on Sunday and was slightly disappointed to see such little springly progress from the buds on the locally-growing deciduous trees.

Hazel (Corylus avellana) buds and catkins. The catkins – some folks know them as lambs’ tails – are made up of male flowers. A female flower is hiding in the upper-centre of this photo.

English oak (Quercus robur). I’ve noticed that the terminal buds are often flanked by a pair of smaller buds, although the terminal bud in this photo has lost one of its two buddies. (It’s the Lonely Oak!)

Larch (probably European larch, Larix decidua) pegs and a ‘bud’ of some sort – maybe a flower very early on in development? I was very disappointed to find that there were no larch roses on this tree at all; this time last year they were out in force!

Goat willow (Salix caprea). On some of the trees catkins were already forming! I noticed that the buds on the trees with catkins were a light green while the trees without catkins had reddish buds (as in the above photo). Is this a way to tell the male trees from the female trees?

Here’s a wee hawthorn story: I was at college today, being taught how to use Tirfor winches in the context of stump removal. It is an agricultural college, and someone in the equestrian section pointlessly wanted a small section of hawthorn hedge, about five metres long, removing from a little patch of grass next to the stables. It was the remnant of a hedgerow that was mostly destroyed when the stables were built – a hedgerow probably laid down hundreds of years ago. Our instructor, an arboricultural legend (who shares my view that it is a great shame to get rid of something planted so long ago), reckoned it probably dated from the mid-eighteenth century, perhaps from medieval times; possibly, if it was Midland hawthorn (Crataegus laevigata), it may have dated from as far back as the tenth century! The roots were certainly grand old things.

European beech (Fagus sylvatica). The buds are easily identified with their long and pointy ways. ‘Cigar-shaped’, some say.

And of the buds of other locally-growing tree species that I saw up close but are MIA from this post… Common ash (Fraxinus excelsior) buds showed no signs of opening yet, sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) buds were green and swelling, and elder (Sambucus nigra) – I saw a couple of elders with closed buds but one growing on a south-facing slope was covered in tiny green leaves, yippee!

First signs of spring: alder and hazel catkins. A brief update on the treeblog trees.

Winter’s grip on the countryside is finally loosening! The weather may still be nasty, but the days are getting longer and the local alders and hazels have been blasting out their male catkins. The hazels in particular look rather spiffing, their pale yellow lambs’ tails creating welcome splashes of colour in an otherwise bleak treescape.

More male hazel catkins, or lambs’ tails. These photos were taken beside Broomhead Reservoir on Tuesday.

This year’s developing male catkins (cigar-shaped) and last year’s woody female catkins (egg-shaped) on an overhead alder (Alnus glutinosa) branch.

And now for a brief update on the treeblog trees, neglected on this blog for far too long. Sad face.

The two Scots pines look fine. The four grey alders are covered in buds; the top of grey alder No. 4 is dead, as suspected in September. Most of the cider gums look alright, although a few of them have picked up a bit of a lean. Cider gums Nos. 1 and 15 look like they have suffered some serious frost damage. Will they survive? No. 15 took a lot of frost damage last year and survived… The post-Set A goat willow (the seedling formerly known as PSAUS) has some nice big buds.

Most of the downy birches have just started opening their tiny little buds. A few of them may have died, and some of them look to have had their roots exposed over the winter, so some replanting may be in order this weekend.

Set C’s downy birch No. 2 on Tuesday (16th February – 342 days after planting), standing a fine one-inch tall.

None of the sweet chestnuts or beechnuts, planted in the autumn, have sprouted yet. I’m aiming to plant my rowan seeds, the other component of Set D, in March. They are currently undergoing pretreatment.

Flowers of the ash, the wild cherry, and the sycamore

Spring is in the air and flowers are everywhere. So far this year treeblog has carried posts on the flowers of the hazel, the alder, the larch, and the goat willow; also last week, a crab apple on the verge of flowering; and if I may whet your appetite for posts to come, have a sniff of these soon-to-be-flowering trees: the rowan, the horse chestnut, the birch, and the hawthorn. What a bounty! What a feast! In today’s post: the flowers of the ash, the wild cherry, and the sycamore.

The wild cherry or gean (Prunus avium) is a spectacular sight at this time of year as whole trees are covered with white flowers - the magnificent cherry blossom. All wild cherry flowers are hermaphrodite, each flower having a single style (♀) surrounded by several stamens with orange anthers (♂). By mid-summer, the bee-pollinated flowers will have developed into small red then red-black fruits; they are eaten by birds.

These three wild cherry photos were taken yesterday evening in the Ewden Valley.

On the flowering front, the wind-pollinated ash (Fraxinus excelsior) is a bewildering, polygamous mess. From my Trees of Britain & Northern Europe (Mitchell, 1974):

Total sexual confusion: some trees all male, some all female, some male with one or more female branches, some vice versa, some branches male one year, female the next, some with perfect [hermaphrodite] flowers. Male flowers in dense globular bunches along shoots of previous year, purplish then dark red in bud, open yellow with slender anthers in early April well before leaf-buds; female flowers similar but open more widely into a filigree of purple then pale green.

and from my Trees of Britain & Europe (Aas & Reidmiller, 1994):

Flowers: Apr-May, before the leaves open, trees may be monoecious or dioecious, and the flowers hermaphrodite or unisexual, arranged in many-flowered panicles, at first upright, but later drooping, at the tips of the previous year’s growth. Individual flowers are inconspicuous and lack petals [and sepals]. Stamens 2(3), are brownish-red to violet; ovary has 2-lobed stigma.

I’m having difficulty discerning whether the ash flowers in my photos are male, female, or perfect, a problem possibly compounded by the flowers perhaps being past their best. With help from this this excellent page by Eva Wallander, I’m fairly sure the pinkish-red-headed parts are anthers (♂), but I’m not at all sure whether the black-headed parts are stigmas (♀) or just anthers that have already lost their pollen. If you can help me out, please email or leave a comment.

Sycamore flowers seen yesterday on a tree in the Ewden Valley. Most local sycamores hereabouts are a little behind it with their inflorescences.

Figuring out which parts of a sycamore inflorescence are male and which are female sounds like another pain in the ass! From a paper by Binggeli (1990):

In Sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus L., all flowers are functionally unisexual and appear sequentially on a single inflorescence… In a single inflorescence the sex of sequentially opening flowers may differ more than once in time, and de Jong… described eleven different modes of sex expression within an inflorescence…

and from Rusanen & Myking (2003):

The reproductive system is complex. The majority of flowers are morphologically hermaphrodite, but all flowers are functionally unisexual. In each inflorescence there are both male and female flowers – but the number of male flowers is higher, and the duration of the male flowering sequence is always much longer than that of the female sequence. At the tree level, half of the individuals function predominantly as male or female, but there may be some annual variation in sex expression. Flowers are a vital source of pollen and nectar for bees and bumble bees, which are the primary vectors for pollination. A small proportion of the flowers are also pollinated by the wind.

Aas, G. and Riedmiller, A. Translated by Walters, M. (1994). Trees of Britain & Europe. HarperCollins Publishers. – A Collins Nature Guide.

Binggeli, P. (1990). Detection of protandry and protogyny in Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) from infructescences. Watsonia, 18, 17-20.

Mitchell, A. (1974). Trees of Britain & Northern Europe. HarperCollinsPublishers. – A Collins Field Guide.

Rusanen, M. and Myking, T. (2003). EUFORGEN Technical Guidelines for genetic conservation and use for sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus). International Plant Genetic Resources [Rome]. Available from: http://www.ipgri.cgiar.org/publications/pdf/853.pdf [Accessed 26th April 2009].

A few developments from Sets A & C

I was out in the sunny garden on Monday photographing and measuring the grey alders and Scots pines for a Set A update, which I’ll post tomorrow. Here are five miscellaneous photos that shouldn’t mind being left out of an update:

So on Monday, or Day 40, while undertaking my daily scrutinisation of the Set C seed trays, I noticed sommat in the birch tray. Not bethinking it to be a seedling, as it was lying on the soil surface, I gently hoisted it upon a fingernail. Lo! twas a birch seed with a root! After a photo I put it back under a light cover of soil, or more accurately, compost. Will it carry on growing and develop into a bona fide seedling? Or will it wither away before ever amounting to aught? Nothing more has been seen or heard of the rooted rowan berry accidentally excavated on the 14th…

From Set C to Set A: the uppermost buds of Scots pine Alpha (there are a pair much further down the stem). Any time now I expect the large terminal bud, swollen with spring, to erupt into new needles.

One of grey alder No. 4’s leaves. The leaves of all four alders currently don’t look like normal grey alder leaves, either because they are the first leaves of spring or because they aren’t yet fully developed.

Cider gum No. 15, scarred survivor of the New Year’s hoar frost. It’s not dead, it’s got buds! Little red ones!

Cider gum No. 3, not just scarred, but killed off by that same frost. But was it? Low down on its stem, this tiny branch. It was there before the frost – I’m not saying it has grown since then. But I do say it looks like the old freak may still have life in it yet!

And in other news, my father and I completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge yesterday.

The next edition of the Festival of the Trees will be hosted by Orchards Forever from the 1st of May; the theme is trees in bloom. Don’t forget to submit.

Saturday 25th April – Monday 4th May
The sculptures of three fine art students – Elizabeth Green, Fran Morris and Lizzie Latham – will be on display at the Cradle outdoor art exhibition in Bournemouth Lower Gardens. Their work has the common theme of using trees as the setting for their sculptures. Click here for more information.

Young sycamore leaves

Tree leaves: are there any so inherently beautiful as a sunlit young sycamore leaf? I resent Acer pseudoplatanus, a British non-native, for being naturalised across the whole country; but those luscious young leaves, goldenly illuminated by the sun; how appealing a token of spring!

Peter Hyde’s crab apple

Yesterday afternoon was nice, I had an hour to wait, and I was fairly close by something I wanted a look at: a crab apple tree. My father knew there was one in a particular graveyard, right in front of my great-grandparents’ grave, so I paid a visit. Now I don’t think this tree is a wild crab apple (Malus sylvestris), but it is definitely a Malus and there are plenty to choose from. The Collins Tree Guide (Johnson, 2004) says there are “about 30 species and several thousand hybrid cultivars…”

The tree was well in leaf and covered in these pinky-red flower buds which may open into flowers of a different colour.

The lawn under the tree was covered in small, red crab apples in various states of decay. One or two were still attached to the tree.

Near the bottom of the trunk was this band. I wondered if it was where a scion has been grafted onto a rootstock, but it’s probably just scarring caused by having formerly been tightly strapped to a support.

The crab apple in leaf, in front of a larger, leafless tree. As you can see, this crab is quite a small tree – I reckon it about ten foot tall.

Leaf. Note the small, rounded teeth and the glossy surface. Studying it now I’ve noticed a tiny lobe on the top margin a third of the way in from the right, and a fold at the opposite point on the bottom margin. Typical that I didn’t notice if this was typical to all the leaves! The Tree Guide tells me that a number of Malus species have lobed leaves and at least one, the Japanese crab (Malus floribunda), normally having smooth-margined leaves, has “the odd big lobe on strong growths”.

I said the tree was in a graveyard; at it’s base was this small plaque.

IN MEMORY OF OUR FRIEND PETER HYDE

Photos from a brief walk (even more goat willow, larch and alder)

Friday was another of summer’s outriders – a beautiful blue sky and warm enough for shorts and t-shirts, even in the wind on top of a hill. I fitted in a little trip to those goat willows I have under observation (my third in a fortnight) before heading off for the first barbeque of the year, on a sixth floor balcony no less. I took plenty of photos of larch roses on the way, but there has already been plenty of those on treeblog recently. In comparison, the male flowers have been underrepresented on these pages, so let’s start off with some.

A line of male European larch (Larix decidua) flowers. They look like tiny little birds’ nests or baskets full of tiny little eggs to me.

And on the same tree, brand new needles are emerging from a particularly knobbly bit of branch.

The Lonely Oak. Seen from ‘behind’, it doesn’t appear anywhere near as iconic (or lonely) as it does in the classic view.

The eastern Salter Hill, whose summit is home to the ruins of a WWII-era enemy plane spotting post. The branches hanging overhead belong to an ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior). I haven’t seen any ashes showing signs of flushing so far this spring, but they always are one of the later ones to come into leaf.

…and a pair of male goat willow catkins in different stages of flowering. At the moment, the male goat willows closer to Sheffield appear pale yellow from a distance because they are already covered with catkins at the same stage as the one on the left above. However, the males in this particular group, halfway up the Ewden valley, still have most of their catkins at the same stage as the one on the right above: this isn’t the right word, but they aren’t quite ripe yet. There are exceptions though, as evidenced by the above photograph. How far those stamens extend!

By the way, I tried the experiment I proposed in the previous post (If the bark is stripped from a two-year [grey willow] shoot, it reveals fine ridges absent in S. caprea). The result: no fine ridges. The conclusion: these really are goat willows and not grey willows.

Incidentally, I had a sniff of the debarked twigs and they smelled a lot like a freshly cut tomato does. I know that willows contain a lot of salicylic acid. Was this what I could smell? Does this mean that tomatoes contain a lot of salicylic acid too? A quick Google gave several faux health sites stating that they do.

Female common alder (Alnus glutinosa) flowers (and to the right, some of the male flowers). These will ripen into the little woody cones that are one of the alder’s distinguishing features: they are retained throughout the winter, and the old cones are very prominent on leafless alders.

A big ash. Backed up by old maps, I believe that a century or so ago this area would have been fields, probably rough grassland type. In time they were left to go wild, as you can see, with birch and goat willow and alder and bracken (among others) successionally muscling in. The 1894 map has tree symbols along the field boundaries. Are these supposed to symbolise hedgerows or individual large trees? This ash is one of the largest trees here today, but is it old enough to have been one of those large individuals a century ago? I digress. There is an old hawthorn standing right next to the ash (obscured in the above photo) that is split open and all charred inside. I reckon it must have been struck by a bolt of lightning that also damaged the ash, which has had much of the bark at its base removed. Both trees are still alive and new growth is starting to close over the wounds.

Goat willow and larch roses: a reprise

Sunday was an incredible day. The sky was an amazing blue, a shade darker than the hazier skies of Friday and Saturday the weekend before. The air was cooler, but summer lies ever closer. Another treeblog photographs-from-a-walk post begins.

In the saddle of Salter Hills – westwards along Heads Lane from the village of Bolsterstone - two Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris). From the Bolsterstone Extension Draft Conservation Area Appraisal ¹:

Bolsterstone lies close to the main salt route between Cheshire and Yorkshire, and names such as Salter Hills, Salt Springs Farm and Salt Springs Cottage at the western end of Heads Lane… suggest that the lane may have been on a southern branch of the main saltway (Hey, 2001 ²).

Clothing the southern flank of the western Salter hill, remnants of a wood planted between 1855 and 1893. Today it consists of nowt but Scots pine and European larch, tree-wise.

A week previous I wasn’t so sure. Now I am almost certain: these catkins belong to goat willow (Salix caprea) a.k.a. pussy willow a.k.a. sallow. In a week or so, these male catkins will have extended their stamens to become big, yellow pollen-deployers. [Update: Ahem. They would have if they were male, but I now think they are female catkins.] Notice the densely shrubby form in the background.

I have just learned that all willow species are dioecious – trees are either male or female, not both. The catkins of this particular goat willow are not quite flowering yet.

This catkin is slightly more advanced that its brethren. The yellow pollen-containing anthers are clearly visible.

Caveat lector! - From my Collins Field Guide Trees of Britain & Northern Europe by Alan Mitchell (1978):

The native sallows are a complex group, and several species, subspecies and hybrids occur, most of which pass as Pussy Willow when in flower. All except [grey willow (Salix cinerea) ] are strictly shrubs… S. caprea is distinct from the other tree willows in its rather thick, often short and knobbly shoots and upright shrubby growth. In the Highlands of Scotland many are [20 metres tall with a girth at five feet of 2 metres].

From the same book, an experiment that may be worth a try: “If the bark is stripped from a two-year [grey willow] shoot, it reveals fine ridges absent in S. caprea”. Leaves should help too.

…and another. Guess what? I really like these. I hesitated before to say with certainty that these are European larch (Larix decidua) flowers, but I’ll hesitate no more: these are European larch flowers! I’m not afraid that these trees are Japanese larch (Larix kaempferi); I’ve seen cones and their scales don’t curl sharply outwards! And I’ve realised that if the bit of wood these larches belong to was planted no later than 1893 (for having walked circularly we have returned to that bit aforementioned), it is extremely unlikely that these larches are Dunkeld larches (Larix x eurolepis) for that hybrid wasn’t first selected until 1904!

Déjà vu then? This post is a cheeky reprise of last Wednesday’s Summer’s outrider: flowers & buds & catkins & trees. Another clear blue sky; those same two pines and that same bit of woodland; goat willow catkins; larch flowers… Obviously much of this walk shared the same route as much of the other. I wanted to see those willows again, wanted to see if they really were goat willows, inspired by some goat willows in full yellow-catkinned bloom I’d spied through a bus window two days earlier. And I wanted to take more photographs of larch flowers.

Remember the post-Set A unknown seedling? The one that was neither alder nor birch, but induced a “gut feeling of willow”? Could it be a goat willow? Its buds bear a strong resemblance…

References
¹ The Bolsterstone Extension Draft Conservation Area Appraisal, published in February 2009 by the Peak District National Park Authority, is available from: http://www.peakdistrict.org/draftbolsterstone-conservation-area-appraisal.pdf (PDF, 3.59 MB).
² Packmen, Carriers and Packhorse Roads: Trade and Communications in North Derbyshire and South Yorkshire by David Hey (2001). Landmark Publishing Ltd. All editions seem to be out of print.

Summer's outrider: flowers & buds & catkins & trees

Yes, Friday and Saturday were real stunners. It seemed as though summer was already upon us, even though the trees were still bare. Signs of spring were all about. Catkins still dangled from alders in droves, although most hazel catkins are now past their best; and immature catkins – probably male - were protruding stiffly from the ends of birch twigs. Sycamores (Acer pseudoplatanus) are on the verge of flushing, and I saw evidence that rowans and birches are to soon follow suit. A single larch was already sprouting bright green needles; other larches, while not yet flushing, bristled with small but beautiful flowers.

The photographs in this post were all taken on Saturday in the Ewden Valley as I walked down one side and up the other – then later on back the same way.

Two pines at the bottom of a hill. I’ve seen old maps from 1893, 1903, and 1905 that show this patch was then within the bounds of a coniferous wood. A map from 1855 shows the wood not yet in existence, and a “revision of 1929 with additions in 1938 & 1948” map shows the wood to have been much reduced in size. The wood survives today in a further reduced state, mainly to the left of this shot…

...here: a very open wood consisting primarily of stunted pines and larches. I wonder if the wood was planted as a means of sheltering Whitwell Moor, lying to the north, which in those days was grouse shooting territory.

A cluster of willowy trees growing around a spring. Are they willows? Dunno. I currently have little confidence identifying willows, but I want to change that. For the present… are these developing goat willow (a.k.a. pussy willow a.k.a. sallow - Salix caprea) catkins? Any help in the comments would be greatly appreciated!

More male common alder catkins. On the twigs just above where the male catkins are attached, immature, dark purpley-brown female ‘cones’ (technically catkins) are developing. My apologies for their being out of focus in this photo.

An unfurling rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) leaf. It’ll be up and photosynthesising in no time at all, sir.

Here are a couple of past-their-best, dead-looking male hazel (Corylus avellana) catkins. It feels as if treeblog has gone a bit crazy on the alder and hazel catkins lately. That’s a good thing.

So, you’ve seen the male parts of a hazel. In the interests of balance, how about a peek at the female parts? I’ve noticed that there are barely any of these female flowers on each plant, and I’ve read that hazel’s fertility in many parts of Britain is already compromised by grey squirrels eating the hazelnuts that these flowers develop into. It’s a wonder there are any new hazels growing at all.

Aaaah, larch flowers (probably European larch, Larix decidua). The above photo shows a bird’s nest-like male flower (left) and a beautiful, rose-like female flower (right). On the subject of L. decidua flowers, Forestry Commission Booklet No. 15, Know Your Conifers, by Herbert L. Edlin (published by HMSO in 1970) has this to say:

The male flowers, borne in spring just as the delicate needles open, are clusters of golden anthers. The female flowers, often called “larch roses”, are pretty flower-like clusters of scales, and may be green, white, or deep pink in colour. They ripen within one year to rather cylindrical cones. These cones only slowly expand their scales, and when the forester wishes to extract larch seed he has to break them apart.

And back to where it all began. The two pines from this post’s second photo join the background of this late afternoon sun-bathed pine scene.

This post lives on in March 31st's Goat willow and larch roses: a reprise.

Set C update – Day 14 (today): No sign of germination yet.

Summer's outrider: to Devil's Cave and Wind Hill Wood

Friday and Saturday were incredible days, real shorts-and-t-shirts weather; beautiful blue skies, and temperatures March will be proud of. On Saturday I went on a walk that took me down Ewden and along the edge of Broomhead Moor to the furthest point I’ve ever been up the Ewden Valley: the shooting lodge at SK 222 956 (check it out, Google Maps-style). It wasn’t challenging to get there – a Landrover track leads to the lodge – but it was pleasingly remote for a shortish walk. On Friday I didn’t stray so far, walking to Wind Hill Wood and the craggy outcropping of millstone grit I know by the name Devil’s Cave. I was pissed to see that some morons had been littering, but don’t let that negative image tarnish the goodtime spring vibes I hope the following photos (taken Friday) are emitting.

The view NNW over Wind Hill Wood towards Midhope. The woods in the distance are coniferous forestry plantations around Midhope Reservoir

A rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) bud: big and softly, silvery furry. I’ve noticed that rowan twigs tend to be rather thicker than those of our other tree species.

A strikingly wind-swept beech (Fagus sylvatica) near Devil’s Cave… and from below:

One of the bigger blocks of grit making up the Devil’s Cave formation, dappled with lichens, mosses, bilberries, birches, and the shadows of trees.

One of the many tiny birches growing from cracks in the rocks. Their persistent roots pry open the cracks and split apart these vast boulders.

I chanced upon this rusty horseshoe hanging in a young rowan and was concerned that it wouldn’t catch much luck this way up. The beech on the right in the background is interesting in that on it’s other side a huge old wound stretches from the ground to the first branches; the tree is doing a good job of closing the wound with new wood and bark, but it still has a few inches to grow before the two edges meet.

On the return leg of the journey, I made a little detour to see a special birch.

Sheep larch reflections

This ewe and her lamb stared at me from across Ewden Beck. Then they jumped over Park Brook, the little stream to their right, which tumbles into the river as a small waterfall.

Something new to me: a few rosettes of marcescent larch needles. Normally all of a larch’s needles will have fallen by the onset of winter, leaving bare pegs like the one just left of centre in this photo.

The photos were taken on the 16th of March.

In other news, on another walk through the beautiful Ewden valley on the even nicer nicest day of the year yesterday, I saw horse chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum) and young sycamores (Acer pseudoplatanus) opening up their buds. The list of flushers, in order of appearance, so far looks like this: elder > hazel > hawthorn > horse chestnut / sycamore / grey alder. Based on past observations, I reckon birch leaves will be the next to appear, while oak and beech will be fashionably late.

Set C update – Day 8 (today): No sign of germination yet.

More signs of spring: alder and hazel buds and catkins

Common alder (Alnus glutinosa) male catkins, perhaps slightly past their best which may be why they are more red than yellow.

Yesterday was a lovely warm day, perhaps even lovelier and warmer than the day before yesterday which, certain newspapers yesterday reported, was the warmest day of the year so far. To make the most of it, I went on an adventure down Ewden. As luck would have it, I was successful in my ongoing quest for photos of alder catkins. Hooray!

A closer look at a pair of alder catkins. Now hold that image, because I want you to compare them with the hazel catkins below…

Hazel (Corylus avellana) male catkins. Much prettier than the alder catkins, if you don’t mind my saying so.

More hazel catkins, but these ones aren’t fully ripe. The bottoms of the catkins haven’t opened up yet.

These unfurling hazel leaves were down in the valley bottom next to Broomhead Reservoir. It must be milder down there than higher up the hillside, where hazel leaf-unfurlage hasn’t yet begun.

Two kinds of alder, going head-to-head in a bud-off. On the left… the top of treeblog’s very own grey alder No. 4 from Set A; on the right… the end of a common alder (A. glutinosa) twig of Ewden provenance. Common alder, with its glamorous purple buds, is a British native. The grey alder (Alnus incana) is not.

Oh-ho! While the buds at the top of grey alder No. 4 aren’t showing any signs of bursting just yet, buds lower down are opening to reveal their infant leaves! (The twig below the bud may look sticky in this photo but it’s only water – I’d just given the trees a soaking with the watering can.)

And this is the post-Set A unknown seedling. It too is getting in on the spring action. See how it mobilizes that upper bud!

Other signs of spring sighted include hawthorns flushing, lambs, frogs, and bulbs sprouting up from the woodland floor.

…

Set C update – Day 5 (yesterday): No sign of germination yet.

Signs of spring: hazel and alder catkins

Travelling through Sheffield and Hillsborough on the bus this afternoon, I noticed that ~~common~~ alders (probably Italian alder, Alnus cordata) have deployed their bright yellow male catkins. Each tree was covered in thousands of these long yellow pollen-dispersers, and they looked super. Determined to capture the glory on film (XD card), I took a walk down Ewden with my pa, aiming for the alder carr around Salt Spring Beck, Owler Carrs. Upon arrival, I was disappointed to see that these common alders (Alnus glutinosa) were lagging behind their urban heat island chums in the city, phenologically speaking. The male catkins were still in their compact, red wine-coloured winter forms – photograph please:

But then – aha! Right by the beck, a young alder with a fair smattering of the yellow spring-form catkins. Not as tree-coveringly many as I saw in Hillsborough and Sheffield, but still plenty. Camera out, close-up shots ahoy. In the bag.

Later on, walking down the steep part of Mortimer Road towards Ewden Bridge, we spied another young alder with long yellow male catkins. Stopping to admire these early signs of spring, we noticed an unusual bud – the only one of its kind on the tree, as far as we could tell. It looked just like all the other buds, except for little red spikes poking a few millimetres out of its end. Puzzling.

Fast-forward several hours, and here I am uploading the day’s photos onto the computer. Before writing a post around the catkins, I thought it would be good form to see if I could find out what those red spikes were all about. A flower? A gall? A few googles couldn’t shed any light on the matter, but then I had an brainflash. What if that weird bud wasn’t on an alder, but was on a hazel. They both have long yellow catkins in spring…

Lolz. It turns out I’d been fooled. The Mortimer Road alder wasn’t an alder after all, but a hazel (Corylus avellana). Duh! The bud with red spikes? A female flower! Which, all things permitting, will develop into a hazelnut in the summer. (My Collins Field Guide Trees of Britain & Northern Europe, by Alan Mitchell, describes the female flowers as “brown ovoids 3-5 mm with bright deep red styles exserted 2mm a few days after pollen of same tree is shed.” And my Collins Tree Guide, by Owen Johnson, correctly likens them to “crimson sea-anemones”.)

Then the thought hit me that if I was wrong about this alder-hazel, could I also be wrong about the one at Salt Spring Beck. Yes I could. It’s all in the buds you see. Once I’d IDed the Mortimer Road tree as a hazel, I saw that its buds were green and scaly. Just like the ones in the background of the photograph of male hazel catkins at the beginning of the post. Alder buds are smooth and purple – you can see a couple in the photo of the red wine-coloured catkins, which actually are alder catkins. In a week or so they’ll open up, getting longer and exposing their bright yellow insides – just what has already happened on the alders I saw on the bus, which were definitely alders and not hazels because of their giveaway single-stem mode of growth and distinctly alderish shape.

A closer look at the top of the catkins, revealing the golden, pollen-carrying anthers.

What a waffly post! The quick version: man sees catkin-laden (Italian) alders in town; goes on walk to get photos of (common) alders; thinks yellow-catkined trees are young alders; transpires they were actually hazels. Thank the Man-Jesus for those little red spikes. New tree knowledge: what alder and hazel buds look like, and what female hazel flowers look like. Other signs of spring seen: elders (Sambucus nigra) have begun flushing.

Spring has arrived

At long last, the long months of winter are almost over and the long days of summer are just around the corner! In Edinburgh, today was easily the best day of the year so far. The morning was summer-warm with a lovely clear sky. Proper shorts and t-shirt weather. The buds on many of the city trees are in the process of opening; on a walk into town today I noticed rowans, an alder and many shrubby trees I didn't recognise starting to unfurl their new leaves. Out of my bedroom window I can see an elder with many new leaves and a cherry tree beginning to budburst (even some white floweryness). But the two big ashes aren't showing any signs of greenery just yet.

Back home, the deciduous treeblog trees are showing a bit of green. The following photos were taken by my father on Sunday (March 30th) - Day 368.

The magnificent grey alder Number 4 is opening up its buds! And inside there are leaves!

And then the two tricksy seedlings that I noticed in the alder seed tray at Christmas and have been calling alders Numbers 6 and 7. Well, I said I had doubts about them, and look at those leaves. They are distinctly un-alderish. Actually, they don't look very birchy either, and I was thinking that's what they'd turn out to be. So at the moment, they're just mystery seedlings.

Here's a rare treat: a view of the full treeblog line-up. From left to right on the bottom row: Alpha Scots pine; Beta Scots pine; the mystery seedlings; cider gum No. 13; and cider gum No. 14. The seed trays at the back contain the Set B nuts and seeds - there was no sign of any seedling emergence in these trays on Sunday (Set B Day 16). Behind the Scots pines are five round pots containing cider gums Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12, and a square pot containing grey alder No. 4. The small pots on the tray in the middle contain the rest of the cider gums and alders, and the fourth seed tray (centre right) contains non-treeblog lettuce seed.

spring

Spring and decay (24th April 2010)

An early spring wander (21st March 2010) (Part One)

BudWatch (21st March 2010)

First signs of spring: alder and hazel catkins. A brief update on the treeblog trees.

Flowers of the ash, the wild cherry, and the sycamore

A few developments from Sets A & C

Young sycamore leaves

Peter Hyde’s crab apple

Photos from a brief walk (even more goat willow, larch and alder)

Goat willow and larch roses: a reprise

Summer's outrider: flowers & buds & catkins & trees

Summer's outrider: to Devil's Cave and Wind Hill Wood

Sheep larch reflections

More signs of spring: alder and hazel buds and catkins

Signs of spring: hazel and alder catkins

Spring has arrived

spring

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