Chumbawumba tree

Trees are admirably resilient organisms and it usually takes a lot to kill one outright. They can be broken by gales, struck by lightning, flooded, droughted or cut down to ground level and they'll still sprout new growth when spring arrives. Even when they're infected with a fatal fungal disease it can take years for them to die, while all the while they continue to produce seeds. It takes something pretty cataclysmic to kill most trees stone dead.

This rowan, in Backstone bank wood in Weardale, reminds me of the Chumbawumba tune Tubthumping, with its chorus I get knocked down/I get up again/you're never gonna keep me down. If you are not familiar with this particular earworm you can listen to it here. Don't listen for too long - you might never get it out of your head.

It's a mature rowan that was blown over in a gale over fifteen years ago. The windward roots snapped but the leeward roots remained intact and embedded in the soil, so it continued to grow and produce new vertical shoots from the fallen trunk which is slowly subsiding into the woodland floor and is now covered by a carpet of moss. Those new shoots have grown into half a dozen tall, straight trees in their own right.

Where once there was one rowan, now there is a whole row of them. Resilience.

(Double-click on the pictures for a larger, clearer image)

Stranglers

In tropical rainforests strangler fig seeds germinate in the tree canopy and send roots downwards until they reach the soil. Then, as their roots grow they strangle the tree that originally supported their seedling stage. You can watch a video of the whole process by clicking here.

Here in our temperate woodlands we don't have anything quite that dramatic, but we do have honeysuckle that sometimes strangles trees from the ground upwards.

When honeysuckle seeds are voided by birds that eat the berries they often germinate close to trees that the birds were perching on. If they can't twine around the tree honeysuckle stems will twist around each other, becoming mutually supportive as these three have, forming a rope-like trunk but ....

... if they can find a sapling tree to coil around, so much the better. This one coiled around a young rowan and its grip is so tight that it has already distorted the swelling trunk of its host, which is still growing rapidly, so .....

.... if you fast forward a few years, this is the result. This swelling rowan trunk, distorted into a spiral by the tight grip of the honeysuckle, has grown out over the climber's stem, so that it's now embedded inside the trunk of the rowan along part of its length. The rowan has engulf the honeysuckle, but both are still growing well.

One day this might make a good walking stick!

Berries

This must surely be the best year for hedgerow berry crops in recent memory. Last year there were very few berries available when the first of the winter flocks of redwings and fieldfares arrived, but this year the fieldfares that we saw pouring into Teesdale on Saturday were greeted with an almost inexhaustible supply. 

Hawthorn

Hawthorn

Rowan

Rose hips

Mild, wet weather has encouraged fungal growth, causing many of the rose hips to begin to rot, so their juices are attracting the last of the red admirals.

A walk around St. John's Chapel, Weardale

These pictures were taken at the end of June, during a walk from St.John's Chapel in Weardale onto the slopes of Chapel Fell, then down into Daddry Shield and back along the river Wear to St.John's Chapel. It's a great circular walk, with splendid views, and when you get to the highest point the only sounds come from wind, water and birds.

Down in the valley, at Harthope Burn, hawthorn was still in peak blossom - incredibly late this year.

The path up onto the fell is along a wide, stony track fringed with drifts of wood cranesbill, lady's mantle and cow parsley - a natural perennial herbaceous border. Garden designers at the Chelsea Flower Show spend a fortune trying to replicate this.

In the foreground, wood cranesbill; in the background fields full of buttercups which have produced a memorable spectacle this year. Poor grass growth in the late spring prevented farmers taking an early crop, so the buttercups and cow parsley in the meadows have benefited from a stay of execution.

When we reached the highest point on the walk we were briefly surrounded by a flock of swifts that treated us to a display of aerobatics. 

The last deciduous tree on the path up - a rowan, in full bloom. Legend has it that these were planted around farm houses to ward off witches.

Meadow pipits are one of the commonest birds in the high pastures

The last flowery meadow - above this elevation the pastures are rough grass and rushes.

The views into upper Weardale from here are stunning.

The lapwings had chicks so were keen to deflect our attention.

Back down in the valley, at Daddry Shiield, burnet rose was in full bloom. This is the first wild rose species to flower here in summer and by far the most fragrant.

A haymeadow, along the footpath beside the river Wear between Daddry Shield and St. John's Chapel.

Hay rattle is the characteristic wild flower in these old meadows.

Marsh orchids, flowering on the river bank.

A young rabbit, wondering whether to stay put or bolt for cover.

Snow-in-summer Cerastium tomentosum, tumbling over stone walls in St. John's Chapel.

A perfect summer day.

A Tree-spotter's Guide to Buds: part 2

White poplar Populus alba winter buds are covered in a dense felt of fine white hairs that, from a distance, make the twig look as though it's been dipped in white emulsion. The white hairs cover the underside of the leaves too, which flash green and white when they flutter in the breeze in spring and yellow and white when they change colour in autumn.

Alder Alnus glutinosa buds have this beautiful violet-purple sheen that intensies in spring, as the buds begin to swell

Common lime Tilia x europaea buds, which are rounded and have few bud scales, develop a deep crimson hue when they're exposed to sunlight, but on their shaded underside (right hand twig above) they remain green. The purple pigment is produced in response to bright sunlight.

Sweet chestnut Castanea sativa buds are also tinged red but the twigs are chestnut brown. Notice how the buds below the terminal bud sit on a little shelf.

... and this is rowan Sorbus aucuparia, possibly the least attractive buds amongst native species, whose hairy, pointed buds lack shiny scales.

For part 3 see http://cabinetofcuriosities-greenfingers.blogspot.com/2009/12/tree-spotters-guide-to-buds-part-3.html

For part 1 see http://cabinetofcuriosities-greenfingers.blogspot.com/2009/11/tree-spotters-guide-to-buds-part-1.html

For more posts on tree ID click here