TREE FOLLOWING OCTOBER - SYCAMORE BY THE SEA

I'll begin by zapping you with colour.

This is 'my' sycamore - the one I'm following; taken in the evening.

I was going to say "It's not really that colour" when I realised I don't really know what colour it is. If I were nocturnal, daytime colours would be an aberration. And in the rain it's something else.

Here it is on the morning of the same day.

Yet this isn't exactly right - for the sun was ahead on the right and not only was it lighting the tree in a morning-way, my camera and I were seeing it differently from each other..

Approached from another side, it was gently green and yellow and brown. From another a silhouette. From another it was almost wiped away in the white glare.

I can't get right close to its trunk because it's surrounded by brambles. Of the ones nearby (and there are many) these blackberries are the last to ripen. The sycamore's shade and a curve in the path combine to keep the sun away. They are sweet though.

(I know this because in a spirit of scientific enquiry I ate all the ripe ones I could reach.)

Quite a few leaves are falling onto the path before they are brown - maybe because the tree is exposed to strong, easterly winds which drive straight at it from the length of the English Channel.

Its seeds are blowing aside too. This one was a few feet beyond the over-hanging branches. One of the helicopter-blades has broken in the fall.

Peering closer one can see that while autumn hits the tree, little plants are growing through the dry and un-nutritious soil. They will be trodden down before they get very tall but for such plants the year is a perpetual spring, regardless of the official season.

We can see that one of 'our' pair of seeds on 'our' tree is broken too. I have photo after blurred photo of this same seed because the tree wouldn't stop waggling around in the wind. But I've followed the progress of this particular seed over the last couple of months so I kept going back. (One day, I'll go and they'll be gone.) 

I can't say this tree is lovely at present. As the leaves change colour (and some fall)  tightly packed clusters of seeds are revealed either against the sky or against the new yellows and paler greens. Individually they are fine - it's almost impossible to walk by without picking them up from the path and throwing them in the air to watch them spin round as they fall. But bunched up they can be ugly and unpleasant. These clusters here are looser and smaller than most - prettier.

(The reason I am able to identify one particular seed again and again is that the seeds on one low-hanging branch have developed farther apart from each other than those on the main part of the tree and one hangs at an odd angle.)

Slightly beyond the tree's shadow other plants are turning into skeletons. These dried stems will stand like this all winter.

But chicory is still flowering and hoverflies are fighting over individual flowers; dive bombing each other even if there are vacant ones on the same plant.

Why? Perhaps some flowers are already drunk-empty of  nectar and pollen? Or maybe hoverflies are jealous of each other and can't stand to see somone else on something good. Or maybe they don't like hoverflies who look different from themselves? (See below.) Anyone know?

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Following a Tree?

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WHY DO LEAVES CHANGE COLOUR IN AUTUMN?

Wonderful, easy to grasp first time and brilliantly short explanation from Peter Gibbs of the BBC.

HOVER FLY SITES

Royal Entomological Society
"Over 250 species have been recorded in the UK, and more than 85 species have been found in a single garden."

British Hoverflies - Useful for ID because there are masses of pictures!

Nature Guide UK - I've only just found this site and have added it to the Loose and Leafy list of helpful and interesting ID sites. Even bigger pictures! It has other insects too. Well worth a browse.

Nature Spot

also on Nature Spot

Some Loose and Leafy blog posts where hoverflies make guest appearances.

The Next Box for Tree Following Links

will open at 7am (UK time) on 7th October 2015

and close at 7pm on the 14th.

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A WALK BY THE SEA IN AUTUMN

If you are looking for the Tree Following

 Link Box for October, click here.

Usually I show you plants. I'm going to show you plants now.

Usually the pictures are silent. You don't know what I hear. What you may not realise is that in one of my favourite spots for plants, if I pop up below hedge level the sea is what I see. Often it's silent because this bit of sea is contained within a massive harbour. But today it was noisy. So were the birds. But the birds were boring. They were taking it in turns to sing or croak or caw. There were Dunnocks. (Pretty.) I think there were Robins. (The best singers of all.) There were magpies squabbling and crows shouting randomly in what they may have thought was a chorus. So I decided that in terms of a sound-scape the sea was best of all. After a couple of minutes of magpies I want to ask in an irritated way if that's all they have to say. Click, click, shriek, click. But I never tire of the sea.

Here, then is a sound track to go with the pictures. I'll not say much about the plants in thm. They're the kind you are familiar with on Loose and Leafy. So I'll leave you to listen to the sea while you scroll down the page. If you don't have the kind of computer which can cope with video clips I apologise. You'll have to imagine a gentle but persistent hum rising and falling with the wind interfering every now and then.

This is one of those plants one forgets what they are once the flowers have gone. At least I do. I find white umbeliferous plants hard to identify even in the summer.

(To see what this seed head looked like in September, click here. You'll see some seeds are still hanging on.)

Haws are falling.

Quite a lot of them are still on the trees. They are crinkling up and going brown and waggling around on their branches because they are camera shy and the wind is rising.

The round things are ivy flowers. Another mystery.

Lichen which is orange (I'd say yellow but it's called Common Orange Lichen - Xanthoria parietina) is changing to green as it gets wet in the rain and general autumn dampness. When the weather is dry, it reverts to yellow. If you look carefully you'll see the lichen on the upper part of the branch is greener than the lower part. In the summer all of this was a mixture of bright orange and yellow. (Here's a picture I took of the same lichen on a nearby branch on a dry day in January last year.)

Do I understand what lichen is? No. To me it's a science fiction creature (I say this every time because I don't get much further forward it's sort of unbelievable - a combination of algae and fungus. When it's damp the algae element (green) shows through the fungal element which contains a chemical (xanthorin) which protects it against the UV rays in sunshine. 

This is what flowers come to!

Blackberries are falling, leaving brown whirls behind. They look rubbish from a distance but are beautiful close to. (You might want to click the picture to enlarge it.)

And on the way home, out of the way of the sea, the sycamore in a drain we've been following for the last couple of years. It looks a bit tatty but autumn hasn't reached underground just yet.

* * *

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Xantharia parietina on Nature Spot

Xanthoria parietina on Wikipedia (if you're in the mood for really, really concentrating).

OUT ON THE TOWN

One of my mantras - to look up. Another, once you are up - look down.

There are special places I return to over and over. Are the same plants there? Depending on the season, the answer is usually 'yes'; if not the original ones, new ones which have grown from their seeds or their roots. Town plants - the wild kind - are as predictable as their hedgerow cousins.

Another reason for returning is to have another bash at photographing plants which 'didn't come out well first time'. (Sometimes they never do.)

This fern is one of several growing on the outer side of a footbridge over a level crossing. The gates don't stay shut for long and it's exciting to stand by the track and watch trains rattle by so whether from patience, laziness or interest, shoppers usually wait till the barriers go up again. Sometimes there are people in carriages. (It's fun being a passenger looking out at the crowds.) Sometimes its a chain of trucks. Sometimes I too stand and wait but I don't like crowds, view climbing steps as a minor contribution to staying healthy - and like to visit the plants on the bridge.

I've never yet taken a really crisp picture of any of the ferns there. I have to reach the camera out over the brick edge and twist it down or back (safe with handrail so I'm not going to tip over) and focus at an uncomfortably short distance which sacrifices depth of field. (Remember, I'm well-pleased with my camera but I can't change the lens.)

Yesterday was no exception. Slightly fuzzy image. Odd angle. But . . .

The train has just passed and a huge column of pedestrians surges over the track in both directions . . . looking at the ground.

They do, of course, have to make sure not to trip on the rails . . . but it's more than that . . . when not looking in windows or checking phones, people do look down a lot when walking along. I do this too - watch my shoes pop in and out of vision. It can be meditative, give a sense of marching forward and purposefulness. Feet are awfully interesting! Hence my mantra - remember to look up.

Look up - and you'll see ferns.

Look behind things and you'll find leaves and seeds. (Even if they turn out at a jaunty angle!)

Look down .

Even underground . . . well, you already know my fascination with drains!

But don't neglect feet level.

Here under a backstreet tree by a multi-storey car-park among fallen leaves and old twigs - about four inches across . . . it pays as much to look down as up. 

And, if you look up - you may see me looking down! If you do - I'll wave.

_____

Tree Following News.

In my enthusiasm to keep the list up-to-date - I obliterated it. Bother!

But, to me, autumn is the beginning of a new year. It always seems more like new life than new death with everything getting ready for next spring and summer. Always very hopeful. So . . . new list!

Hollis is giving us a really good start with 'Autumn Strategies 1'.

Hollis Marriot blogs from Wyoming in the U.S.A. The terrain is profoundly different from the Dorset land-and-sea-scape I'm familiar with and the plants there often have to use different ways to deal with their environment - one which (it seems to me) is a pretty challenging one. 

Unlike Loose and Leafy - which rambles about discovering things without knowing anything - In the Company of Rocks and Plants gives you proper science too. (Of a very accessible kind.)

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THE TROUBLE WITH NETTLES - URTICA DIOICA

Stinging nettles (Urtica Dioica) aren't specially famous for their flowers. This is not surprising for they dangle uninterestingly and herald tattiness. No-one would ever dream of bringing them into the house to look pretty in the middle of a dining table. If the wind hadn't been waggling them about I would have taken their portraits so you could see what I mean. Instead, my memory card has filled with green blur after green blur after green blur and the blurs are are so dreadfully blurry they couldn't even be considered artistic.

New leaves are arriving. New plants. And the wind has played on. But if it were to leave them alone it wouldn't be blowing pollen between male and female flowers and any seeds which managed to form would drop in a pile at their feet instead of being thrown around. The reproductive life of the nettle family would be arrested. Banning the wind in October might, therefore, be a tempting option for those with omnipotence up their sleeves. On the other hand . . . there are those tough, long, yellow roots from which more nettles spring without its help . . . .

But I've managed, at last, to catch a glimpse of seeds on a few standing-still nettles. But just a glimpse. Another time I think I'll chop a few down and take them home and lay them out and photograph them that way . . . but it wouldn't be the same. 

If you'd like to know more about nettles, the University of Wisconsin has dedicated nettle pages for its students.

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THE FUNGI

Since there's no particular order in a wander, I might as well start with my favourite picture. It's of Candlesnuff Fungus (Xylaria hypoxylon).

Candlesnuff Fungus (Xylaria hypoxylon)
November 17th 2012

This year is the first time I'd come across it and it was so tiny (though my book says it can grow to 6cm high) it might easily have been missed. It was growing on a felled tree trunk. When I first saw it, I thought it might be 'Stagshorn Fungus' (Calocera) because some of the white tops look just like antlers - and it rang a bell. But, no, Candlesnuff - like little grey wicks with white ash left where the flame has been blown out. (The white 'ash', says, my book (*), is produced by asexual spores. It also says it's very widespread and very common. Apparently, it grows all year round but I've never noticed it before so I'm thinking of writing a book for myself in which it's described as 'incredibly rare' and 'a wonderful find' and things like that.)

A long time ago, in another part of the wood (14th November 2009) I came across what looked like burnt chestnuts on fallen twigs.

King Alfred's Cakes (Daldinia concentrica)
November 14th 2009

 I didn't, then, know what they were. I may now. (Slow cooking, this blog!) . . .

King Alfred's Cakes (Daldinia concentrica)
November 17th 2012

If you have been reading Loose and Leafy over the last few years, you will know I give fungi new names. Not only do I find my names easier to remember than those invented by others, it means no-one will be tempted to use this blog as a sure and certain route to identifying them. So, for me, these are Continental Chocolates. But, it turns out they are really . . . King Alfred's Cakes (Daldinia concentrica)!

Sometimes, things are confusing. What is what?

Lumps on bark of living beech.
November 17th 2012

There were lots of these lumps on Beeches - on some trees more than others. As you can see, they seem to be pushing up, alien style, through the skin of the trunk. This picture was taken from the ground and the little lumps were at quite a distance from the lens but they are clear enough to get the idea. I'm assured these are not fungi and have been given the suggestion that beech bark damages easily so this is some kind of . . . of . . . something that gets in . . . a bacterium . .  ? I don't know. Whatever it it, it seems odd for there were masses of them and all in lines . . . how did apparently healthy trees get damaged to this degree?

Probably Ganoderma
November 17th 2012

It's a hard life, being an amateur and an ignoramus. This post would have appeared much sooner if it hadn't been for the next fungus..

Probably Ganoderma
November 17th 2012

This specimen is about two inches from top to bottom and two inches across at its widest. Following my habit of giving things names, I thought it looks like a hoof. Lo and behold, there is a Hoof Fungus (also called Tinder Bracket because it's useful when lighting fires) so, naturally, I thought this must be it. However, when I looked it up, I had two problems. Hoof Fungus is more likely to be found in Scotland than in the south of England and, in the pictures I found, it has a cream underside whereas this one is pink. Which means, bother, it probably isn't a Hoof Fungus after all, even though it looks like one and is a Ganoderma instead. (There's more than one kind - but I'll leave that up in the air.)

This last picture (the one below) is of Lumpy Bracket (Trametes gibbosa).

Lumpy Bracket (Trametes gibbosa)
November 17th 2012

The name of this fungus puzzles me. Masses of fungi are lumpy. I think 'Dragons Scales' might be a good name. Or maybe 'Grebe' fungus - because it seems to carry its offspring (or 'outcrops?) on its back. The green, by the way, is an algae - not the colour of the fungus. (And, if the focus seems odd - it's because I was concentrating on the tiny fragment of lichen.)

* * *

For the woods where these fungi grow,

see last week's post

Walking in the Woods

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*Collins Complete Guide to British Mushrooms and Toadstools

If you need help identifying fungi - try Ispot (can't praise it enough)

You might enjoy browsing through The Beginners Guide to Some Common Types of Fungi

And Visual Fungi is a good site too.
Earthfast Imgages (Roger Butterfield's Photos)

Members of Facebook might like to take a look at the Dorset Mushroom Hunters Page

WALKING IN THE WOODS

This is really a post about fungi. I have to tell you this because, if I don't, there will be no way of you knowing because, after this paragraph, they won't be mentioned again until the end. But it's good to have a context. These woods are the context for the fungi in the next post and for them, you will have to wait!

They are on the edge of the River Stour, which runs beside Blandford Forum in Dorset and which is, as you can see from the gulls swimming on the grass, prone to flooding in wet weather. The woods themselves, at least on the bank we are about to walk along, are on enough of a rise to be mostly protected from the water and they are, I reckon, one of the most beautiful places you could ever be.

They are wonderfully and sensitively managed; the lightness of touch is impressive - old logs left and lots of undergrowth but paths kept clear so people (and horses) can walk through safely. To get there, it's a bit more than half an hour's walk followed by an hour's bus-ride from the places I usually show you so forget the sea, forget pebbles . . . and, in winter, you can think snow.

November 17th 2012
The grey behind the leaves is the water of the Stour.
Some  branches are branches, some reflections.

At the beginning of the walk, there are yew trees. After that, at this time of year, it's the beeches which most attract my eye. The ways through the woods are wide so it's reasonably safe to look up as you walk; though it is, in places pretty muddy.

Some of the leaves, as you can see, are quite a deep bronze. Others, brighter.

And, under foot, a carpet of both - with more and more falling as you walk.

(Notice the ivy?)

Through the trees, you can see St Martin's - the church of Bryanston School.

If you keep going (which you have to unless you turn back, there's no-where in between!) you will come out beside it, or near it (depending on the route you take) and, all the time, you will have been looking out for fungi - or, at other times of year, maybe . . . beetles? I don't mean it's rock solid with fungi - but there are enough to make it extra interesting, especially because they are not the same as the fungi I know from the woods nearer home.

* * *

For the post about the fungi in this wood, click
HERE

How are the trees you are following doing
 now it's autumn?
My elderberry seems pretty mundane
compared with the beeches in
these woods but,
not withstanding,
I'll catch you up with it soon.

For the post about the fungi in this wood, click

HERE

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CARDING THE SEA

Autumn on the land - so in the sea, it seems. Around this time each year, the sea gathers armfuls of seaweed and eel grass and places it on the beach. In other years, I might have said 'thrown' but, as with finding lots of red admirals on the ivy - much depends on the day, the moment you look.

On 15th October, the sea was gentle. Great lumps of seaweed and eel grass were bobbing about in the shallows. I don't know whether you are familiar with carding wool (this is not a digression) but before wool can be spun, the strands have to be pulled straight. To do this by hand, you spread threads from the fleece over a grid of pins which stick out from a rectangular piece of wood which has a handle. Then you pull a matching 'carder' across it, over and over, till the 'grain', as it were, is smooth and straight. A deft realignment of the carders lifts the wool from the pins. As it comes away, it is rolled into a sort of tube called a rolag. A fleece, when it comes from the sheep is oily and smelly and, most likely, has bits and bobs of debris - straw and the like in it. Getting it ready for spinning is hard work on the arms but gentle on the wool. Mid October - and the sea wasn't hurling weed onto the shore, it was carding it - gently disentangling the threads, laying them out on the beach and rolling them (or, perhaps, nudging them, there are no exact parallels) into piles.

The short video below shows it happening.

Some of the seaweed clumps waiting to land are still attached to their 'holdfasts'. (A holdfast is a sort of foot which keeps the plant anchored to its rock.) These, in my mind, are the seaweed equivalents of 'staples'. Sheep's wool grows in clumps - staples. The length of the wool in the staple is one of the factors which determines the quality of the yarn made from it and, hence, the cloth. Mixed with these, and in different states between whole and broken, are strands from other plants. It's a right tangle. A tangle waiting to be 'carded'.

Watch the gap between the piles of weed on the shore. First one thread is drawn from the sea and straightened. The next wavelet pushes it a little further out of the water and attaches another strand to it. You'll get the idea. (Watching full screen helps.)

And here . . . in stills . . .

15th October 2012

This is dried and broken eel grass being sifted out of the sea.

15th October 2012

With each wavelet, other seaweeds are nudged against it, then pulled straight as the sea sucks out.

15th October 2012

As the sea brings more, it pushes what's already there into piles.

15th October 2012

More and more variety, in various stages of a seaweed 'autumn'

15th October 2012

Until everything that will come ashore with that tide is drying above the water line.

Then . . . well . . . then there are so many piles along the beach they join in an ugly, decaying ridge. Then it all gets sucked back out again. We'll ignore that for the moment and enjoy it in its fresh colour.

* * *

It's raining. I can't update the view I'm following while it rains so here's one from the first of November.

November 1st 2012

I began following this view on 21st September.
To see what it looked like then see the post
'Following Trees and Views and Willow Herb'
* * *

P.S. I've not yet put links with this post. So far, the demonstrations of carding I've found seem to have been made using clean and fluffy pre-carded wool and internet explanations about the word 'carding' seem, to my un-botanical mind, to be muddling teasels with thistles. However . . . if I can find links to clear and relevant information which doesn't confuse me - I'll add them here.

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THE END OF OCTOBER

You have no idea how many photographs I've taken recently, nor how many topics I've covered. How could you? I've not been churning out posts - and even this is late. Trouble is, I've been overwhelmed by choice. In the end, I've cheated and will simply present you with a small selection of autumn photos. After all, it is autumn. What more pressing subject could there be?

October 30th 2012

Chicory.

October 30th 2012

Chicory is one of my favourite plants. Its flowers get smaller as the season advances but they stand out specially against the aging vegetation beside the path. Some petals have fallen. Some seeds are forming.

October  15th 2012

Some parts of the landscape are still green.
Others are brown and white.
Autumn takes its time.

Teasels.

Teasels are another favourite.

October 30th 2012

Hawthorn.

Hawthorn doesn't 'do' autumn - not in the striking way of some other deciduous trees. Most of their leaves drop discreetly but there are prima-donnas among them, leaves which decide to do a dazzle all on their own.

October 30th 2012

Willow Herb.

This is one of the larger ones.

I photograph it in the same place every year.

Wonderful shapes it makes against the sky.

* * *

The Follow Section

The most recent tree following posts . . .
from

Experiments With Plants
London Plane Tree

Down By The Sea
Willow

Anyone else?

And, finally - the view I'm following through the seasons.

Sandsfoot Castle
Ten to four in the afternoon,
Tuesday 30th October 2012

Have a good autumnal week.

(Or is it spring where you are?)

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You may also like my other blog

 - Message in a Milk Bottle

(a new photo every day)