AND THEN THERE ARE STREET PLANTS

No sooner is one task completed than another one is there. Isn't life wonderful?

The trees! So many trees in the February link box. Wonderful posts. Do you find as time goes by it gets interestinger and interestinger?

Next up - Street Plants.

I know it can sometimes feel as if one is lurching from one meme to another; but being aware of urban wild plants is something I would really like you to consider - whether you post about them on your blog or not.

It's astonishing how many there are. Really.

I hitched a lift into Poole last week. 'Hurry, hurry,' said my friends as they got out of their car.

"But. . . look at these!"

"There are only two-and-a-half hours on the ticket and there's lots to do!"

By the time they'd stopped telling me to hurry and locked the car I'd already taken my pictures. I hadn't needed to go anywhere.

Right in front of our noses (or rather, our toes) were plants lined up against the pure white hoarding of a building site where a hotel is being constructed next to a superstore. Front wheels, pavement, plants - all in the shadow-shape of a car-park tree. (Alder?)

You don't need to know what they are. Just see them. There!

So - think about it. The link box for urban wild plants will be open 21st - 25th February.

There's even an Urban Wild Plants Page.

* * *

Tree Following Link Box For February

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SLICING THE TREE - TREE FOLLOWING FOR AUGUST

Across the road from the tree I'm following there's a diminishing number of similar ones. One by one they are being felled. It's been going on for a while and I thought I knew which would be the next to go. Its needles are brown on the tree.

I was wrong. Another has gone. Given that all the the trees in the group are a bit tatty it's clear they will all be cut down in the end. But the latest to vanish seemed the healthiest of the lot. I've photographed it more than the others. I'd thought it would outlast the one I'm following.

You know the resin that weeps in golden droplets from the trunk and collects in lumps and hardens and solidifies white and brown - like an unsightly lava flow that's been brought to a cold stop? I've found out what it does to the inside of the tree.

Here is the edge of the stump of the recently chopped tree - a tree of the same kind as the one we're following. On the right is the remains of an ivy which was almost part of the tree. It's about three inches across. On the left is the red wood of the felled tree. In between . . . grey and white. This seems to be an internal collection of resin. It's hard. If you came across it away from the tree you might, at first, think the white is some kind of quartz. Maybe this internal bleeding and setting is what's killing the trees? The work of the bark is being interrupted. Does anyone know?

Back to the individual we are following. Needles are collecting in the fork of the trunk.

A cone has fallen to ground and broken open.

The grass has been cut. The plants which grew in it have gone. We've had little rain. There was an outburst for a couple of hours a few days ago but it's done little or nothing to dampen the ground under the tree.

Its exposed root stays bare.

What a brown post!

One little bramble is all that grows.

I'm Following A Tree
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I hope your trees show a little more green!

The Link Box for Tree Following Posts

Opens at 7am UK time on 7th August

and will close at 7pm on the 14th

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OF RESIN AND CONES

I've been waiting for a pine cone to fall from the tree I'm following and at last one has. The first, no doubt, of many. Compared with others I've seen in previous years, it's not large. How large? I don't know. I didn't have a ruler - oh . . . except I had my foot.

Here you see them; fallen cone, fallen needles and a foot to measure them by. (I always knew my foot would come in handy one day!)

There are many yet to fall. If my blog goes dead. If suddenly there are posts no more - it's probably because I've been struck on the head by a cone. Be warned!

Meanwhile, the trunk still captivates me; the trunk, its bark and its oozings.

Here comes a drip.

Some drips form planes.

Some . . . I don't know how to describe this shape.

Some grow . . . toadstools?

I'm still not clear whether this is a real fungus or a resin shape. I'll keep looking.

At the foot of the tree - a bramble has sprung up. It won't last here long. The grass is often mown.

And thinking of mown . . . the wind was roaring away up there in its high branches. (They are all high!) I recorded the sound - and discovered something . . . 

For a while, the wind waved the branches and the noise was pleasant and loud but at ground level all was still. Then the noise from the branches died away and the camera picked up on the breeze which had sprung up at head level. Two winds. Hadn't expected that.

I'm Following a Tree
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If you too are following a tree - the link box for June is now open and won't close till 7pm (UK time) on the 14th.

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TREE FOLLOWING - FREDA IS FERTILE

Freda (for those of you who don't know) is the name I've given to the tree I'm following. I'm not in the habit of giving trees personal names but I don't know what this tree is. A pine - but what kind? It's very big. Very dilapidated. Older (I hope!) than me and in a public place. It would seem impertinent to call it 'mine'. So, for the moment 'Freda' it is.

I said big - too tall to get near the branches. I said old. Bits of it are dying. (Some have already been lopped away.) But, high up there, I can see another branch is on its way towards . . . will it sometime fall?

Some days, I think 'what a stupid tree to choose'. On others I enjoy the challenge. I am a detective. What is happening up there? This was caught in a spider's thread. I think (I think!) it's a male cone - a microstrobilus (also known as a 'pollen cone'). Compared with the more familiar female cones, from which the seeds will fall, it is tiny. The big, hard, cones which fall from this tree are four to six inches long; hard and heavy. This fragile little thing is barely half an inch. Yet from this the pollen will fall into the seed cone (female) and, if Freda is fertile, seeds will form. I'm saying this without much hope. In other years I've tipped seeds from the mature cones (a bit like sycamore wings only in ones instead of in conjoined pairs) and I've tried to grow new trees from them. Never has one germinated. Which means the title of this post might be all awry - wishful thinking and nothing more. How can we tell if she's fertile or not? Am I doing it wrong or would they never grow, even under someone else's care? Something else to find out! (Beware! This might not have fallen from Freda. It might have flown in from another tree; not even necessarily of the same kind. It's feathery light.)

So far, I haven't seen much animal life in the bark - but here's a snail!

And there must be spiders because their threads are everywhere. As well as male cones and dead woodlice (unpictured) they catch dead needles as they fall.

Most of the rest of the needles collect in the kerb - along with cherry blossom and litter. There were daisies too in the kerb and I'd planned to photograph them along with the needles - but when I came close I decided this Angle Shades moth was more photogenic. Of course this signaled the moment when cars and vans began to drive up and down this quiet street. I had to stand back - and hope the moth didn't fly away. It didn't. Nor did I get run over. Happy ending!

REMINDER!

The link box for Tree Following posts will open at 7am UK time tomorrow morning (7th May) and will stay open till 7pm on Wednesday 14th May.

Are you ready?

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