A year in the life of a beech tree Fagus sylvatica

Beech Fagus sylvatica autumn foliage almost glows when it changes colour in October.

Truly one of the finest displays of autumn, beech foliage almost glows on bright afternoons.

Beech nuts ('mast') and their husks. In occasional mast years a massive crop can be produced .....

.... which is good news for bramblings, that feed on the nuts.

The smooth, grey bark of beech trees often proves tempting for lovers who carve their initials in it. Wounds like this let in fungal infections that can ultimately kill the tree.

Young beech trees and clipped beech hedges retain their dead autumn foliage until spring.

A beech in the prime of life, at the beginning of winter.

Frost is needed to release the buds from winter dormancy ...

But unusually late frosts in spring can destroy tender young foliage.The fine hairs around the edge of the leaf tenfd to fall off after the pleats unfold and the leaf expands.

Beech male flowers

Coming into full leaf - the same tree as shown above in winter

Mature beechs have a massive root plate which sometimes give the appearance of the tree having melted into the ground.

Southern bracket Ganoderma autrale - often a killer of beeches. Here it's growing on an old stump ....

.. but more usually it grows higher up, weakening the trunk which can often snap in autumn gales, 10-12 feet above ground level. The fungal brackets are perennial, producing a new layer of spore tissue every year and generating millions of spores over the course of a several years.

A Tree-Spotter's Guide to Flowers: 5

This is Sambucus racemosa, an introduced relative of our native elder Sambucus nigra that's quite commonly naturalised in Scotland but not seen very often further south. This is one of several large specimens on the edge of Blaid's Wood in Durham. It flowers much earlier than our native elder and the flowers are produced in dense conical inflorescences rather than the familiar flat 'plates' seen in elder. The ripe fruit is scarlet, not black.

Hawthorn or May blossom. If the flowers have a single stigma in the centre it's Crataegus monogyna, if there are two it's C. laevigata (but check several flowers because this can be a bit variable on the same plant). The flowers have a distinct fishy smell that's attractive to flies.

Beech Fagus sylvatica - dangling tufts of stamens produced alongside the fresh new foliage.

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