A WALK AS THE SHADOWS LENGTHEN

Psst! Tree Followers.
The next Link Box
is onMonday 7thJuly

Sometimes it's good to look for something particular for a post. Sometimes it's fun merely to walk out and do nothing more than see what's there.

Perhaps it would have been better not to go out just as the light was fading; when bright streaks crossed gathering shadows. But I did. I went for my walk when it was sunny in some places and shady in others. Impractical for photographs but a summary of the day within a minute. Some flowers wide awake and some getting ready for sleep.

This is a time to notice how reactive many flowers are.

It's the same in the morning. Sometimes I've gone out to photograph a particular flower. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. And there on the wrong side of the path is my plant - eyes shut and dozing. Dandelions and daisies are like that. Scarlet pimpernel too. Catch them at the wrong moment and you catch them shut.

When I went for my walk, buddleia had its head in the sunshine - above the shadows.
You can glimpse the horrid open flowers in the lower corner
while admiring the grace of the others.

I don't like buddleia flowers when they're fully open. They're gross. Repellent. In bud they're fine. When dead - interesting. Buds and dead are similar. In between they fatten up, go lumpy and have too many petals packed in tight and too close. And the centres of the little flowers that make up the big one are the wrong colour. Some clashes make my heart sing. These make me wince. I find them so ugly I can't even show you a plump and open lump. (I like their leaves and bark though. I never pretend to be objective!)

Caught in the grass, are the flowers of Common Knapweed (Centauria nigra). They are a bit like prickle-less little thistles - only they aren't prickly and the leaves are long and thin.

And right out in the sunshine, one of my very favouritest flowers - Viper's Bugloss (Echium vulgare). A shame it has such a terrible name! The flowers are interesting and vibrantly coloured. The seed pods are silver (when they come) and are covered in fine hairs that stick in your hands and hurt and are so thin and floppy they are difficult to get out. Ow! Very ow!

In front of the hedgerows, where the grass is short and coarse and rough after a council mowing, there are masses of white gossamer tents with tiny spiders inside.

With them, in each tent, is a creamy white, papery structure that looks like a wasp's nest in miniature - the egg sack they came from. For most of the time, the little spiders are spread around the tent. When disturbed, they hurry together into a pillar shape. I think they are Nursery-web Spiders (Pisaura mirabilis). Africa Gomez has information about them on her Bug Blog. (Do you know Bug Blog? Wonderful, clear photographs of insects and a commentary by someone who, unlike me!, really does know what she is talking about.)

I'll return and lurk every so often; find out how fast they grow. They've been growing slowly over the last couple of weeks; hardly perceptibly. Perhaps they'll accelerate? I'll look out for their mums standing guard. (I've not seen one yet.) I'll watch out for them leaving home and dispersing. (I expect they'll be there one day and gone the next. So I'll probably miss them Sigh!)

As well as following a tree - I'm now following spiders!

And on the way home, convolvulus trumpets close as shadows densen and fall across them. Elegance; with the white shining through the gloom much more brightly than the picture shows. Restful. Reassuring. Lovely.

The end of the walk.

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All photos in this post were taken on the evening of 3rd July 2014.

A couple of new links on the Loose and Leafy 'Help with Identifying Things' page:
British Arachnological Society
Spider and Harvestmen Recording Scheme Website

* * *

Don't forget

the next date for our Tree Following updates

is 7th July.

Monday!

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P.S. I'd like to ask a favour. It would be helpful to know how many readers live in Dorset and the surrounding counties. That way I can get an idea of how much local information I can assume and how much I should make sure to add in. In order to gauge this, it would help me a lot if you would tick one of the location options where it says 'REACTIONS' below. The ticks are anonymous. The information is only as you see - numbers. But it might make Loose and Leafy (even!) better. (Perhaps you could leave a tick for each post you read. This won't go on for ever. Maybe four posts?)

A POST IN GREY

One of the delights of autumn is the way the skies swing between grey and blue. How a plant 'looks' (it's emotional appeal to humans) is closely connected with how brightly the light shines. There's something cheerfully heart lifting about crisp colours and lots of easily discerned detail. When colour and detail vanish, texture tends to vanish too. We are left with shape and awe.

November 15th 2012

Immediately - a problem with ID.
Is this the top of a sycamore or maple?
Looking around for an answer, I've come across a tree called
Sycamore Maple
(Acer pseudoplatanus)
Descriptions suggest we might not only confuse this maple with sycamores
but, in some seasons, with plane trees too.
Confusion comes easy!
Meanwhile, I don't know what this pretty tree is.

This is one of my favourite times of year and, although I realise it would be boring to have non-stop silhouettes, I'm always pleased when these newly re-revealed structures of the natural world re-appear against the sky.

November 15th 2012

This is very top of the tree above.
Asking if anyone knows its identity

would have made more sense when it still had leaves!

BUT - once one knows . . . 

being able to identify a tree from its winter shape would be a handy skill,

don't you think?

As ever, I'm aware I have taken these very same pictures before - same plant, same angle, same blank grey sky. It's almost like the annual school photo. The subjects up, fix their smiles and - zam, that's them to put in the album. Once I like something, I tend to get stuck on it. When I see the same shape as last year, I find it oddly heart warming. But, this time, old scenes have given me a new idea.

November 15th 2012

This blackberry loop is hanging from the elderberry tree I'm 'following'.

The clump is so well covered with ivy and brambles, I missed it shedding its leaves!

When I'm trying to identify a plant or tree (and this can be a very ordinary plant or tree, I rarely come across anything exotic) I plough around blogs and ID sites and, of course, upload pictures to Ispot (which I can never plug enough!). But it's often difficult to draw things together. There's a real leaf here, a drawing there, a diagram of tree shape, a flower alive but not what it looks like when it dies. Very hit and miss - and will remain so. Apart from all the other practicalities, every leaf is different. Each tree has a history written in its bark.

November 15th 2012

These are blackthorn leaves.

Blackthorn belongs to the plum family. In summer, its leaves are glossy and dark green.
Its autumn transformation is startling, more so than in trees like sycamores whose
autumn leaves, apart from a change in colour, aren't much different from their summer selves.

The range of plants and trees I cover in this blog is very, very narrow. The challenge of this is to keep it interesting. The advantage is that I have a lot of pictures of the same ones at different times of year. Even then, there are glaring gaps. I may photograph the same branch every autumn because I welcome the re-emergence of its shape . . . but miss the bark every time round. Even bark changes. A sudden downpour and its colours are altered in seconds.

November 15th 2012

Hawthorn leaves.

In spring, hawthorn leaves are a delightful light green.

The blossom (May) comes later and tends to hog attention till the autumn

when the berries (haws) steal the show.

Meanwhile . . . don't forget the leaves!

So . . . a new discipline. I'll look for a way of gathering pictures of individual varieties of plants into separate, easily accessible albums. I tried doing this with elderberry a few years ago by giving it its own blog. The project foundered. And the labels in the side bar aren't a lot of use if help is needed with ID because they link to posts, not pictures.

November 15th 2012

I'm a fan of buddleia bark.
(I'll have to look out old pictures - and add some new.)

I like dead buddleia flowers (like these) - but not when they're live -
their florets are packed so densely, there' something disconcerting about them.

The discipline in this is double. First, it might be boring. Indexing takes a special kind of mind and a lot of time. The other - and this simultaneously enlivens my interest and makes me feel guilty because it highlights the gaps . . . why do I not have more pictures of bark? But . . . . I'll see what I can do . . . and if you have experience of drawing things together in this way and have advice - please do share it if you are willing.

November 15th 2012

Gorse against a blue sky spells summer heat and picnics.

It's grey-sky shape has a starkly different atmosphere.

A sad addendum.

As UK readers (especially, I think, those of us in England) will be all too aware - our Ash Trees are under threat from a fungal infection called Chalara fraxinea (Ash Dieback). Potentially, it can kill almost all our ash trees (Think Dutch Elm Disease).

November 15th 2012

Two Ash Trees.

When the undergrowth pulls back a bit for winter, I'll see if I can get closer

to show you the trunks as well as the top-most leaves!

The picture above shows the edges of the tops of two young ash trees. We are all being asked to keep an eye out for Ash Dieback. This will be a new kind of tree following - a sombre one. Do click this Forestry Commission link . Towards the bottom of the Forestry Commission page, there's a short video. If you have a moment, do, please, watch it. It's both interesting and important. Important because the only way to stop the spread of this disease is by taking out affected trees. Specially interesting beause it shows not only the external signs of the disease (the leaves, the lesions) but what is happening inside the wood too.

* * *

The latest tree following post I know of is
from Gary Web at Compton Verney.
Not only is he following it through its seasons
but a family has adopted it too!

Plane Tree - Autumn 2012

Have you updated your tree?

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P.S. All photos in this post are in colour.