TREE FOLLOWING IN NOVEMBER - FROM ROT TO BRANCH

I chose my tree because it seemed the most dilapidated in a group and I wanted to record it before it was gone. Instead, the tree I thought the most healthy has been felled and the others are dying - well on their way to dead. Except for the one I'm following. It will, it seems, last out my Tree-Following-Year.

Not that it's abounding with perpetual youth. As I've mentioned before, it oozes. I've also said how puzzled I am by the absence of creatures. There are cobwebs without spiders. There's the occasional dead woodlouse caught in them; seeds with parachutes too. But of other signs of life; zilch. It's odd. On almost every other kind of tree I've found an abundance of this and that, plant or sentient. Maybe it's because creatures aren't interested in the dry, fallen needles of a pine. But I've looked for them in its multi-creviced bark and they aren't hiding in there either. Perhaps they like living needles? No. When I've looked at the lower-down branches of the same kinds of trees over the road, nothing much except the bark has caught my attention there either. (And one spider.)

So I'm pottering around the tree, admiring colours in the bark and wondering about this absence of other life when I see what may be fungus beginning to grow at the foot of the trunk. I kneel down to examine it - and find myself kneeling in woodlice. Living woodlice. In and out of the needles and grass and . . . and tree. The base of the tree is rotting and they are it eating away.

Way, way above there's a canopy of cones. As time goes by I get more and more nervous about them. The moment will come when they will fall. (They will fall, won't they?) I doubt I'll be tree following on days when the winds are high!

The grass around the tree has been cut again. But plants keep springing up. Here's a plantain. (And a glimpse of the base of the trunk in the upper right hand corner of the picture.) The branches of the tree are so high these plants have plenty of light for much of the day.

And all the time the tree oozes and drips from its inner self make patterns on it's already wonderfully patterned bark.

* * *

Earlier Posts About This Tree.

I'm a Tree Follower.
Are You?
To find out more about
Tree Following
go to the
Tree Following Page.
It's a rolling project.
You can join in at
any time of the year

2014

March               I've Found My Tree

April                 Freda - My Tree Following Tree

May                  Freda is Fertile

June                  Of Resin and Cones

July                   The Talking Trees

August              Slicing the Tree

September         My Tree in September

October 2014    The Ever Unchangingness of Trees

My last post about this tree will be in March 2015 so I can compare the

first month with the last.

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THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY

I've been invited to go on a trek. My neighbour, Esther Montgomery, has suggested I go on a camping holiday, travelling due North through England and Scotland and coming back on the other side (more or less). There will be Esther, her husband, their two children . . . and me! You can see the route plan on her blog - here.

How can one resist? The down-side is that I won't be able to blog while we are gone and, by the time we return, the season will be turning and pictures I have been accumulating for particular posts will have become dated and irrelevant. That's the trouble with a plant blog - you can't put nature on hold!

But I don't want to abandon some of these topics so here are some pictures that were intended for a couple of urban posts.

First, plants which grow along the edge of the pavement and the drop into the water of Weymouth Harbour. 

In the foreground is the edge of the pavement. The concrete path beyond it is a pontoon where boats moor while waiting for the bridge to lift so they can get into the inner harbour without having their masts lopped! Beyond that is the water of the harbour itself.

It always astonishes me that plants can grow (and flower!) in such inhospitable places. There's no visible earth. There's traffic on one side, boats on the other. (The engines of some boats can be very fumey when they are start up and turn towards the sea.) The wind can be strong along here and there's salt in the air.

The blue is a pipe going down from a tap. You can see the tap itself on my other blog-
Message in a Milk Bottle - TAP.

Is there anywhere Buddleia will not grow?

Where plants have no hold - moss takes its chance.

And, down in the gap . . . a leaf floats by.

Below the life-belt case .

* * *

I had an inland-urban post in line too. Pavements made from bricks have become common - and plants are glad of the cracks between them.

Never under-estimate grass!

Some ubiquitous plants don't like to be trodden on.

There can be great variety at the foot of a wall where residents refuse to 'weed'.

Grasses come in many forms. Hurray!

Don't forget to look close-up! The patterns and textures can be impressive.

* * *

Alright, I know that, however impressed I am that so many plants are able to get their feet into almost impossible places

 . . .  most who read Loose and Leafy like to see colour and countryside. Here is a picture which got away when I wrote the post about the under-side of flowers.

I'll be back in September . . . around the 16th I expect.

Have a good August everyone.

Lucy

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