ELDERBERRY - TREE FOLLOWING

The Elderberry tree I may switch to.           Februay 11th 2014

I first began following 'my' hedgerow elderberry tree in December 2008. In theory, I later moved on to a sycamore (about which more in another post). In practice, I've never left it.

This was before I ever thought others might want to do something similar and, with what may seem an odd sort of precision, I didn't follow the tree so much as a point on it where several leaf buds were forming - just that one place. Before long, it was impossible to see it. In the autumn, when the tree shed its leaves, there it was again. In the meantime, I was following something almost invisible and in shade. So I switched to another leaf bud on another tree in the same little group - which was also often in shade and produced the smallest leaves on the whole tree. The next year, the leaves there were a bit bigger. Then the branch broke off. Hmm.

Ivy berries on the original elderberry tree.
February 13th 2014

And, over this time, I found myself more hooked on the ivy that is gradually taking it over than the tree itself. Ivy, it turns out, is absolutely gripping. Its flowers have no petals. In the autumn they look like fireworks. Hoverflies can't leave them alone. The berries change from green to brown to black - then they drop seeds. How many of us have thought to look for ivy seeds? Sometimes, when my head is in a bush, people stop and ask me what I'm looking at. If it's a butterfly they are pleased. If it's a hole in a leaf, less so. If it's ivy flowers - they are stunned. Hardly anyone, it seems, has ever thought to look out for ivy flowers. That they don't even look like flowers adds to the . . . well, it's like being in a detective story.

And I've been hooked by the lichen on it too - lichen which is sometimes orange and sometimes yellow and sometimes green - depending on the weather.

Because there is more light around the new elderberry,
I'd be following 'new' plants beneath it too.   Feb. 16th 2014

Meanwhile, the elderberry itself goes under-observed. So, this year, I'm thinking I might 'do' elderberry again - but a tree which is better lit and less ivy clad. With this tree, we may have more of a chance of seeing flowers before they are lopped off by the machines which the council sends to keep branches back from the path. Of course, branches may fall off of their own accord. This is not a new and supple tree. But we've had such strong winds recently and this tree is so very exposed, I'm hoping anything naturally loose will already have fallen off.

We'd see the flowers.

We'd see the berries.

Lichen and leaf shoots on the 'new' elderberry tree.           February 16th 2014

Not that I'll be able to resist the lichen.

We'll see.

* * *

To find out about tree following, read the first post in this series. Holm Oak - Quercus ilex - Tree Following.

If you too will be following a tree this year, do add your name and blog into the linky box below. At the moment, we're simply building a list of people taking part. (For the growing list - see the Tree Following page at the top of the blog.)

If you have already added your name to the list and now have a tree-following post to announce - use the linky for that too. Come the beginning of March, we'll have a formal tape-cutting post. After that, we'll have a linky box once a month. For the moment though, I'm putting a new one at the end of every post so there are lots of opportunities for people to join in.

I'm Following a Tree

If you would like to use the Tree Following motif, feel free to use it on your blog.

Janet at Plantaliscious has introduced her hawthorn. You can read about it in her post Juggling with Trees
And read about Lucy's Common Alder on her blog Alder & Ash.
And at Flighty's Plot - What Willow?
To see the growing list of Tree Followers - click here.
Duncan is reviving his blog Duncan's Wild Garden specially to follow a tree!

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The current linky box is with the post for February 21st.

JELLY EAR FUNGUS

April 12th 2013

Judas Iscariot (goes an old tale I'd never heard before until I looked it up) hanged himself on an elderberry tree.

The fungus Auricularia auricula-judae can be found growing on elder trees.

April 12th 2013

The inside looks like the whirly bits of an ear.

So it got the name 'Judas' Ear' which morphed into 'Jew's Ear' - Jew's Ear Fungus.

April 11th 2013

It looks as if it's made of jelly - the kind you buy in packets of sweets, not the kind you have for pudding - so it's called 'Jelly Ear' as well.

February 20th 2011

When I first came upon it, it was on a fallen log in a wood and shaped differently. It was more orange than brown. Some had the eary whirls inside but others were smooth arches. (All were low down and in good light and easier to photograph!)

April 11th 2013

The fungus in these up-to-date pictures was growing on an elderberry tree - one in the clump we are following. Our very own Jew's Ear on our very own Elderberry tree. (A bit too brittle for hanging on!)

April 11th 2013

All pretty things come to an end. I hope my ears don't look like this when I am old.

Anyone know the source of the legend?

Or who first said Judas gave elderberry leaves their smell by hanging himself on an elder tree?

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THE TREES GO ROUND AND ROUND

February 24th 2013

On March 14th 2010 I published a post called 'Take One Tree'. It it's a sycamore and I've been following its progress ever since - though 'progress' probably isn't the right word because it never seems to do anything. Even the ivy which was cut away last year is re-growing this. There's a Hart's Tongue Fern that never moves. There's an Arum maculatum that dies down and come back. There are celandines which used to flower with exuberance but have become a bit tatty and drab over the last few years. The ditch at the foot of the bank is a bit more silted than it was. And that's about it! It's not a very leafy tree and the leaves it does produce are very high up. But, still, I follow!

Then there's the clump of elderberry trees.

March 14th 2013

I began following them in December 2008 when I was still using the camera on my phone. I even gave them a blog of their own. (The Elderberry Log Blog been much neglected. Perhaps I should revive it.) At first,  I followed a particular whirl in the wood of one of the trees. This turned out to be a mistake because when the leaves had grew round it, it became impossible to photograph. It time, bits flaked away. So I switched to a crooked branch. (You can see the crook clearly in a post from August 2012 called 'Who Stole My Leaf'.) And now a bit of the crook has broken away so it's a crook no longer.

At first, I thought it had gone completely but 'our' shoots are still there, simply a little higher because, with less weight on it, the branch has sprung higher.

March 14th 2013

And now that it's March, our eyes begin to turn towards the hawthorn and blackthorn trees. Of the blackthorns, I've been specially noticing some young trees. On this one, you can still see the shriveled remains of last year's sloes.

And all the time there's gorse.

March 14th 2013

.

Soft green buds.

March 14th 2013

And startling bursts of gold.

The years go round. They stay the same. They flake away. Things live. Things die. And live again.

Click HERE for previous Sycamore Tree Following posts.

I'm Following a Tree

Are You?

A Growing List!

Some people follow a tree for a year, some for longer.

There's a list of tree-following bloggers under a tab below the picture at the top of the page.

Over the next little bit, I'll be revising it and visiting tree-following bloggers to find out if they are still following their tree . . . or have stopped . . . or have moved on to a new one.

Meanwhile . . .

Joy at The Little House in the No-so-big Woods is setting off this year with a cedar elm. Her first post is Be careful, tree: there's someone following you!

(How's that for a title!)

and

Laura (who used to blog at Patio Patch) is following a London Laburnum on her new blog, Tell Tale Therapy.

Do you have a tree following post? If so, let me know, and, despite my profound inefficiency and erratic blogging technique - I'll endeavor to remember to put a link here!

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WALKING BACK FROM THE CASTLE

Fish, Gold and Black, swimming among the Elodea crispa plants
in the pond in Sandsfoot Castle Park in Dorset, England.
Thanks to Mark and Gaz at Alternative Eden for water plant ID.
January 11th 2013

When the Castle was done up a bit last year
(and made safe to go inside)
 mats with grass on were laid along the tops of the ruins.
I don't know why. (They're falling off now.)
January 11th 2013

You know the castle in the view? The view we're following? Soon I'll show you round. First, though, I'll set up the year. Not that I've got a good record on this. I say I'll do things then never get round to them. That, or they go wrong. I decide to see what will grow in a particular patch of ground - and the council mows it. I decide to photograph the leaves of a particular tree - and forget all about them until they've not only opened but have dropped off in the autumn. Nevertheless, there are some things which are fairly well embedded in my ordinary Loose and Leafy routine. It's reassuring when we get to January to find the world is still going round much the same - at least, bits of it are! You can't stop the seasons.

Geese on the water. Portland Harbour January 11th 2013.

There's a good account of brent geese on the RSPB site.

For close up drawing to help with ID, plus more info.

So, imagine you are in the grounds of the castle-in-the-view. You've looked at the fish and the weed in the pond. Now you go into the castle itself (it's very small, what remains of it) and walk through it to a little platform overhanging the rocks to see what you can see. There's a lot of noise. A flock of geese (brent geese?) is landing on the water. They set off together for a very quick paddle - you can see where the water is left disturbed in their wake. The herring gulls on the rocks ignore them.

Dessicated blackberries.

January 11th 2013

Then you potter along a bit to look at the elderberry clump we've been following.  The remains of dessicated blackberries still stick out from it over the path. For much of the year, these trees are little more than climbing frames for brambles and ivy.

January 11th 2013
For all that it's a bit odd to recommend a video
about something quite this static,
if you haven't seen the Natural History Museum clip about
lichens as pollution indicators,
click HERE for Xanthoria parietina The Movie!
(And more .)

The lichen on it is a brash and ghastly orange. When it's densely packed like this . . . I'm not sure it's entirely pleasant.

Common Orange Lichen - well named! But it changes its shades; yellow one way and green the other. Sometimes it's very green - but not today; which is surprising because I've always associated the green with damp weather (and there's been almost nothing but recently!)

Xanthoria parietina is an indicator of nitrogen in the atmosphere too. Near the sea, as this is, nitrogen is to be expected. (Sea birds contribute a lot!)

Common Orange Lichen
(Xanthoria parietina)
January 11th 2013

The first picture shows its real colour on January 11th 2013. This is the same photo with the colours changed a bit to emphasise their gradations. (So you notice the bits which are a bit greener. Sometimes, they are greener still.)

Elderberry.
January 11th 2013

The elderberry leaf shoot we've been following for more than a year (!) and which did hardly anything last summer . . . .  There's a new leaf where the old one was. It's got a sort of head-start in height this time round. Maybe it will one day become a branch? This appears to be a long term project!

Ivy Berries
January 11th 2013

The year before last, I followed ivy until its berries ripened but never showed you what happened when they opened and dropped their seeds - so we'll take up with ivy roughly where we stopped off before. For all that it's a common plant, its flowers, berries - even the shapes of its leaves - go much un-noticed. I suspect its seeds are even more of a mystery. (See the post for December 3rd 2011 -  Exploding Ivy and for January 13th 2012 - The Berries Mature.)

Cock's Foot Grass (Dactylis glomerata) January 11th 2013

Grasses - I'm thinking it might be a good idea to make more of a fuss of grasses this year. Grass isn't just grass it's . . . well, here's some flowering already.

And the view.

The view we're following - with Sandsfoot Castle and tree.
January 11th 2013

I'm a little fed up with this view. It never does much except sit there and be beautiful. And I daren't go back to the dent where the willows are to look at the rocks because the cliffs have been so washed by rain recently I'm worried they'll slip down and squash anyone who goes too close.

So I'll pretend I've been back, even though I haven't, and put in a picture I took there before . . .

December 18th 2013

Shells emerging from one of the rocks in the dent. Prehistoric cockles? (Anyone know?)

* * *

January 11th 2013

Some tree followers have been rounding up their year with final posts about their particular tree. I'll soon do a round up of the round ups. Have you finished with your tree or will you be carrying on? Has it been interesting? Will you be choosing a new one?

This, as you can see, is the one in the foreground of my view. I'll be specially aware of it over the next few months because, by summer, it will be obscuring what's beyond - and, by then, the brent geese will have gone.

* * *

Best wishes for 2013

I hope your year has got off to a good start.

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FOLLOWING TREES AND VIEWS AND WILLOW HERB

What is Tree Following and Who Does It?

Although I'm officially following an elderberry tree - or, rather, a clump of tangled elders, I've not abandoned the sycamore I've been keeping an eye on for several years. Indeed, there are quite a few trees, and bushes and patches of ground that I am specially aware of. This post is about five of them.

We'll begin with that elder.

As I've mentioned, it was cut back during the summer so the berries went AWOL and the undergrowth in front disappeared. This cutting, I have learnt over time, has a reasonably short lived impact - even though though the result is a one-sided tree. And, of course, I've yet to see what happens in the very long term.

One of the things I've noticed when choosing particular leaves to follow - observing them right from when they are little green blobs - is that the ones which come to my attention early tend not to do well compared with those which burst later. This happened with the hawthorn I thought was a blackthorn (oh dear!) and it is true of the elderberry too.

February 5th 2012

This is the shoot I chose on the elderberry tree. It seemed a good one at the time because it's in the crook of a branch and easy to find over and over.

This is how it was earlier in the year.

(February 2012)

September 27th 2012

This is how it is now.

Familiar pattern?

Sycamore I'm following - September 22nd 2012

Then the sycamore.

The ivy clinging to it was cut back during the year. Necessary, perhaps, but sad for me - I'm fascinated by the elegance of single strands and the beauty, the colour, the shape of its leaves. Of the trees in this little woodland area, it is not the leafiest, despite its sturdy trunk(s!) - and autumn this year is odd. A curl up at the edges and fall off kind of event instead of dramatic colour.

September  22nd 2012

Same Tree - September 2008

On the other hand, another elder bush - one which attracted my attention as early as 2008 (when I was using my phone as a camera) continues to grow and thrive and produce yellow leaves. This is not down to autumn. This is how the bush regularly is. Maybe it isn't an elderberry?

Remember the thistle from a couple of weeks ago? Where the bees gathered in June?  I've not been 'following' that particular plant. More, I've been aware of that patch.

Willow Herb Shedding its Seeds - September 21st 2012

Willow Herb grows there too. There are lots of Willow Herbs - not just the well known Rose Bay variety (Fire Weed on the western side of the Atlantic) and I don't want to hazard which this is. However, until very recent heavy rain and short, sharp wind, they were opening their pods and releasing seeds.

September 20th 2012 (in Esther's Garden)

I've not understood how this works before. One minute there are tall, thin, upright pods. The next, the plants are 'decorated' with an ugly, fluffy, tangled mess. By being more aware, this year, I've seen what happens. The seeds are evenly spaced in straight lines up the pods and each seed is attached to a closed parachute above it. The pods don't split at the sides so much as peel back from the top and, as they dry and open, they pull open the parachutes. This, to me, is clever and marvelous but, also (to me) the next stage is less impressive. Instead of flying away like dandelion seeds, they seem to fall where they are and get caught in the peeled back bits of the pods lower down the plant. This, presumably, is why tall willow herbs grow in clumps. Some seeds get away though and it's a good 'spreader'. The smaller versions which arrive in gardens, I have noticed, are more likely to give each other space.

Willow Herb which has dropped its seeds onto opened pods on the same plant - September 13th 2012

This picture is of a middle sized one in my neighbour Esther Montgomery's garden after the seeds have fallen into their old-cotton-wool muddle. (All sorts of things can look better in a photograph then in 'real' life!)

And, last up - a view.

This is new. Well, clearly not a new view but new that I'm following. Because it's by a bench, and because there's a castle to fix in the middle of the picture, we should be able to follow it through the seasons, certain we are looking, each time, in the same direction!

September 21st 2012

By putting the ruins of Sandsfoot castle centre frame, it should be reasonably easy to keep a steady eye on what is happening to the tree on the right of the picture, the brambles on the left and the view beyond.

* * *

For more about Tree Following - Click HERE

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WHO STOLE MY LEAF?

Narrow path between elder trees.
To see what this was like in January click for
the first in this series of elder posts.

There are several of us bloggers who feel a bit disrupted when the council cuts verges along paths and roads. A few years ago, there was a specially deep and distressing hack-back, just when it was almost the moment to go blackberrying. It hasn't been too troubling since then. Vipers bugloss and chicory plants tend to be affected so the grassy edges of a route I often follow are less dramatic, less blue than they used to be - but the trees are kept trim without being splintered and torn; people can walk or cycle without being grabbed by brambles. It has to be done.

Until recently, the undergrowth (mainly consisting of alexanders and nettles) has been growing tall between me and my elder tree. (The 'my' meaning the one I've been following since leaves first showed their buds.) At times, it's been awkward. I've had to zoom in over the top to photograph 'my' particular leaf. And there have been irritations too - of all the leaves on the tree, 'mine' decided to be the smallest, the least grown, the runt for all that it started well.

The leaf I've been following used to be in the crook of this lichen covered bough which
is covered in a layer of Common Orange Lichen
(Xanthoria parietina)

And now? Between going on holiday and returning, the council has been by and shaved things back. Elderberries which were ripening when I went have been cut off or shaken from their stems. And, strangely, despite having grown in the protective crook of a bough, the leaf I was following has gone, along with its brothers and sisters.

Bits of wood are broken.

Ivy leaf pierced by twig.

Leaves pierced.

But . . . and there are lots of good 'buts' . . . nearby, a bit of colour - 

Gatekeeper (Pyronia tithonus) butterfly on blade of grass.

a Gatekeeper Butterfly in the grass.

And blackberries too. Some have had their stems cut so the fruits have withered and dried but there are still masses ripening - not very ripe yet but there!

Attention will need to shift to them. They are looped over 'my' tree, even if 'my' tree is a little depleted!

* * *

This post is part of my 'Tree Following'

If you'd like to email me the link to your latest tree following post

looseandleafy@googlemail.com

(or, if you prefer, leave a link in the comments box)

I'll add it in here and make sure your name

is included in the list of 'Tree Followers' at the top of the blog.

What is Tree Following and Who Does It?

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Seeing for the First Time - Wych Elm at Patio Patch
Plane Tree - Summer 2012 at Gardening Ways

P.S. You may like this sequence of 20 pictures of  some of the world's most beautiful trees.

IVY AND ELDER - MID APRIL

It's surprising how many old leaves and dessicated berries there still are in the bushes.

Some of the ivy flowers and berries which were like firework balls in the autumn have turned into woody, spiky, fascinating things in which texture and structure are more prominent than colour.

They are mixed in with glossy, established leaves.

(Flies like ivy.)

And, because it's spring - there are new leaf buds.

And new leaves!

* * *

THE ELDER SECTION

Clusters of buds for elderberry flowers are beginning to form. More on some trees than on others.

And, beneath them, the scented flowers of alexanders.

Here's our elderberry shoot - it's the smallest one in the middle. Before long we will not be able to see it for other leaves. I chose it because it's in the crook of a branch and, therefore, easily identifiable but it's rather annoying that it's the slowest on the tree to grow!

THE SOUND ROUND A TREE

Pictures are important. In them, we can see all sorts of things which we'd probably not notice if we weren't taking time to examine a static image. However, a tree is more than a picture. Below are a couple of short video clips of 'our' elderberry clump. Nothing happens. That's the point. It's a little pause to listen. I've not yet managed to upload anything of a satisfying length so they stop almost as soon as they start. Apologies for that. My intention was to offer a moment in which to stand (or sit!) and stare and to be aware. Hopefully, I'll work out how to load longer clips without destroying the quality as time goes by. Meanwhile . . . oh, and if you click the YouTube option you can see them larger.

Looking up the bank to the Elderberry Clump and listening to the birds at dawn.

April 15th 2012.

The Elderberry Shoot framed by the stems of Alexanders.

Around 3:30 pm in the afternoon of April 20th 2012.

* * *

NEWS FROM TREE FOLLOWERS

The Latest Posts

from

Tree Followers

From Lichfield Lore - Tree Following . . . bring May Flowers
From On the Edge Gardening - Lime by Name
From Down by the Sea - Tree Following 4

From Gardening Ways - Plane Tree on the Move

From Walsall Wildlife - A Rotten Place to Live

From Tree Care Tips - Horse Chestnut and Red Maple

From Patio Patch - Wych Elm Cousins

For a list of the Tree Followers
And - don't forget Treeblogging which aggregates posts about trees from a wide range of blogs.

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