It's a catkin..... but not as we know it ...

I found this strange hazel catkin when I was out walking along the River Wear at Wolsingham at lunchtime. Unlike the normal one on the left, this one has branched into seven separate 'tails' at the tip. Might have been caused by damage during the very early stages of its development last summer.

Next Year's Christmas Card, an Early Spring and a Job Well Done .... ..........

While we were out walking in Teesdale this morning we encountered this very obliging Robin ...... 

.... that struck a variety of poses that might be suitable for next year's Christmas cards. 

 Incredibly, hazel catkins are coming into bloom along the River Tees near the Meeting of the Waters. With a mild weekend forecast they look like they'll be shedding pollen in the New Year. Strange days indeed.....yesterday we saw lesser celandines in bloom in Sunderland (but I forgot to take a photo). 

Meanwhile, lambing will begin in a few weeks. We spotted this magnificent ram in a field of sheep, with a contented look on his face that suggests a job well done....

Lottery Odds

This is a female flower of a hazel Corylus avellana. In about six months time it will have developed into a cluster of hazel nuts but for now, at the base of those beautiful carmine red stigmas there are female egg cells, each waiting to be fertilised by a pollen grain that will land on one of those stigmas, germinate and produce a microscopic tube that will transport the male nuclei down to the site of fertilisation. First, though, the pollen has to reach the stigmas - and that is a very chancy business.

Tap a twig covered in dangling male catkins on a still day and they'll release a cloud of pollen grains that will hang in the air for a second then disperse. If there's any kind of wind (and there usually is in spring) they'll be whisked away immediately, diluted in a vast volume of air and fall to ground who knows where - or maybe be destroyed by rain. The chances of one actually landing on a receptive stigma is small. Very small. Which is why wind pollinated trees like hazel need to be so profligate when it comes to producing pollen.

For every female  egg cell, embedded deep within this bud, it has been calculated that the tree produces 2,549,000 pollen grains. So next time someone uses the phrase 'the economy of nature' and waffles about how living organisms are 'perfectly adapted' there can only be one response: nuts. Hazel nuts.

A Tree-spotter's Guide to Buds: part 1

A beech Fagus sylvatica bud. It always seems to me that buds are under-appreciated natural objects, not just because of their inherent beauty but because that explosion of greenery that we call spring is already pre-packaged inside, protected by bud scales but ready to unfold just as soon as a winter's chill breaks the bud's dormancy.

Charcoal-black ash Fraxinus excelsior buds on grey twigs are unmistakeable. Some buds will burst to reveal a mass of crimson stamens in early spring, others will burst much later to unfurl their foliage. Ash is always the last native tree to come into leaf in Britain.

Hazel Corylus avellana buds, with next year's catkins already formed and ready to elongate and shed pollen next February. Hazel twigs have bristly hairs on their surface. The leaves only unfurl after the catkins have shed their pollen, so as not to inhibit the flow of airborne pollen.

These are the distinctive winged fruits of hornbeam Carpinus betulinus, that cling to the twigs long after leaf fall. You can just see one of the small brown nuts attached to one of the bracts, bottom right.....

... and these are hornbeam buds, which are not quite so distinctive.

A sycamore Acer pseudoplatanus bud, which is particularly attractive in spring when it swells, elongates and in many trees becomes flushed with purple pigments.

And finally, a horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum 'sticky bud', with the horse shoe-shaped scar of one of last summer's leaf stalks. For generations of children (me included) who went to rural schools that had a 'nature table', the annual ritual of cutting these buds in early spring and watching them unfold in a jam-jar of water was an annual, memorable ritual that became an enduring totem of spring. For a close look at the marvel of microscopic packaging inside one of these buds, hop over to http://beyondthehumaneye.blogspot.com/2009/11/marvel-of-miniaturisation.html

For part 2 see http://cabinetofcuriosities-greenfingers.blogspot.com/2009/12/tree-spotters-guide-to-buds-part-2.html

For a Tree-Spotter's Guide to Fruits and Seeds, visit http://cabinetofcuriosities-greenfingers.blogspot.com/2010/10/tree-spotters-guide-to-fruits-and-seeds.html

For more posts on tree ID click here